New Owner

[beastchild]

Good morning all,

I just register in your forum which i read over the last few days that i am in the look for a new car and considering a mazda 3.
Yesterday i came across a used mazda 3 (2007) hatchback 1.6 litres manual.
I am about to go and have a look at it and probably test drive it.
So here are some questions that i would love to have some answers to from you experienced mazda guys.
1. are the specific year models reliable enough? (what are some common problems etc)
2.are there any specific things that i should look after when checking out the car?
3. any people with experience on such a model?
4. the car is imported to Cyprus from UK, do UK Mazdas reported any specific problems (there is a rumor here that it would be better to find a Japanese-made 3 instead of a UK one due to less problems occurring)
5. is there any way to find where it was produced without knowing the VIN number?

I apologize for the long post but you probably can understand my impatience....

I like the car and hopefully i will be owning it until the end of the week if feedback is good and then i will be able to be a more involved member of your nice forum...

P.S. Sorry for the mistakes in the post but English is not my native language...

Best Regards

 

[JBR]

Welcome!! All Mazdas are good cars.

 

[mjstew]

well here are answers to some of your questions

1) the mazda 3's have been very reliable since the model was rolled out. There were very few major issues reported on any of the years, but from what I understand 2006 had some issues, but they were quickly fixed.
2) These cars are known to blow motor mounts. This is not an expensive repair (when I replaced mine, it cost $200 US, including labor at a dealership) The best way to be proactive about used cars are just to check to see if the regular maintenance was done on time, this is very important in selecting a used car.
3) my mazda is a 2004, so I can not speak from experience on the 2007 models.
4) I do not believe that mazda has any major assembly operations in the UK. Mazdas main assembly is done in Japan, and they also do some assembly in Mexico. I would stray away from the mexican assembled models, simply because of quality variations from mexico. (once again, not from experience, but a mfg company i used to work for had some operations in mexico that were consistently troublesome)
5) There is another way to find out where the vehicle was manufactured, but it is in the same place as the vin sticker, so you might as well just get the vin. On the assembly/country of origin sticker on the driver front door, there will be a sticker indicating weight, month/year of assembly, and nation of origin. The vin number also has a 3 character country code for which country it was made in. for Japan i believe it will be JMB.

Hope this helps. In all, mazdas are great little cars and I am VERY happy with my choice to buy one.

Welcome to the forums!