A couple of weeks ago my husband and I had a chance to test drive the 4-Door Mazda 3i with SKYACTIV Technology. This week’s test drive found me behind the wheel more often than my husband. My car needed a trip to the shop due to an engine light so having the Mazda 3i was a huge help.
I have to say after driving this car for a week I definitely was missing some of the “cool” features when I got back into my own car. Don’t get me wrong I definitely love my car but I really enjoyed some of the fun features on the Mazda 3i. Especially all of the “auto” features. I’m not a lazy person, just a girl fascinated by technology. While my husband will probably talk about the drive, the look, and the “guy” like features I like to tell you about the stuff that just makes the car fun!
This was my first car equipped with automatic windshield wipers. I was hoping I would get a chance to see if they worked and sure enough on the very first day I had my chance. As I was driving home from work it started to rain. My wipers turned right now under no human influence. There is an option to override the automatic wipers and turn them on yourself or adjust the speed.
Another of my absolute favorite features and this has nothing to do with automatic and laziness is the blind spot warning. This is an extremely beneficial feature and I think all cars should be equipped with it. It is a two-part feature. When a car approaches you on the side, either right or left, as soon as they enter your blind spot a little image lights up on your mirror (on whichever side the car is on). When you look into your mirror, say if you want to change lanes, you immediately notice the light and know there is a car next to you. In addition, if you turn your blinker on to change lanes if there is a car in your blind spot in addition to the tic tic of the blinker you will hear a warning signal that there is a car next to you. Absolutely brilliant I tell you!
These two features alone made me love the Mazda 3i, but there is more. I noticed when I sat in the car that the display panel for the car is not in the usual place on other cars I have driven, which is usually right about where your radio is. Instead, the display panel is up in the dashboard so that your line of vision is still close to staying on the road when checking your panel. Instead of looking down towards your radio panel you just look a little to the left while your eyes are still focused on the windshield. I thought this was another interesting change from other cars I have had the pleasure of driving.
Though the panel didn’t seem to have nearly as many features as I expected (I really missed the rear camera), it did have SIRUS radio (which my husband loves) and the ability to sync up your phone. It did have a pretty neat feature that let you see what type of gas mileage you were getting at any given time. For example, when I stepped on the gas immediately my mpg’s went way down but then came back up as I evened out. Also at the end of a trip, you can see the average gas mileage you were able to get while driving the car. The “range” showed you how many miles you had left before needing to fill up the car.
I wish I knew how big the gas tank was because we appeared to be getting some really good gas mileage. We received the car on Thursday morning and it said we had 525 miles. We drove the car for 8 full days and still had just under 1/4 of a tank left when they picked it up. I ALWAYS go through at least one tank of gas a week when traveling to and from work so this was a nice change. I have a feeling this might have something to do with the SKYACTIV TECHNOLGOY that the Mazda 3i is equipped with.
Our Mazda 3i was fully loaded with all of these and more bells and whistles. The interior was leather which is a MUST for me, yes I’m spoiled like that now. The trunk was a little bigger than the last car but still a little on the small side for us. This is a great car for a family of four (but maybe not if you have teenage boys). It is definitely still a little small for our family of five. I definitely prefer the 4-door to the 5-door cars I’m just a lover of larger vehicles.
I think the features on the Mazda 3i we had the opportunity to test drive really made an impression on me and I would definitely recommend this car to others.
