New MS3 Owner(and to many other things apparently)
 

TLDR: Hi!

So first off, hello to my new community! I just sold my RX8 to a dealership in Houston, and ended up in a 2012 mazdaspeed 3. Funny story about that, since I look so young I was pretty much blown off my 3 Mazda Dealerships before I found one that would take me seriously. Jeff Haas Mazda actually told me they would only give me 3k for my RX8, because my turbocharger was broken. Since when does an RX8 have a turbo? When I asked him to show me where my turbo was, he said it was inside my engine. Needless to say heads were rollin by the end of the day.

Next I wanna give a little comparison between the two so far. The trade was bittersweet. Say what you will about the RX8, but man is it fun to drive. Sure, its slow in straight lines. But put her on the track and she just felt so good to drive! I had also put a lot of work (on my own just jack stands) into her. CAI, header back exhaust, lightweight flywheel, clutch, ss, and pulleys. I love driving, and she was my vehicle.

But I've had the MS3 for 2 weeks now and holy. crap. The amount of power this car ha sis astounding! And for a hatchback, front wheel drive, with this much power I gotta say it can handle as well! In fact, I keep hearing "MS3 is faster in a straight line but the RX8 will destroy it on the track", I do not believe this is true at all. My friend has an SRT-4. He was always rippin on me for having a wankel engine. Now he's jelly of my MS3. But, we had very close track times and his suspension was HORRENDOUS! I mean the car is like a damn boat! I'm sure that the MS3 sheer torque and hp will make up the difference for any time lost in the turns, and it has excellent cornering ability(for a FWD)!


Lastly, I've been browsing these forums and I've noticed something.. Apparently, I am driving a genpu. And apparently there is hate on the genpu because it smiles now? Well, where I'm from nobody owns a speed 3. I've actually only seen about 2 on the road in my whole life. I actually LOVE the way the front looks on the Gen 2! I think its design came after the Mazda Furai, a 3 rotor beast of a supercar concept. I think it looks great! I think Gen 1 guys are just jelly. Plus its not any worse of a smile than my RX8's was lol..


SO, I guess I don't have any questions since I'll prolly just get trolled if I ask any lol. Owning one of these can't be too hard right haha! With the RX8 I had to put oil in every 1k miles, make sure the engine is warm before turning it off, redline it once a day to keep the carbon off and a couple other rotary specific special care things. I guess is there anything I should know about owning a turboed car?

PS. One thing I WILL miss very much about my RX8 that I'll probably never get out of the MS3, is the way it shot about 4-6 ft flames out the back in a hard pull, and that LOUD popping noise that happened at the same time. I was shooting flames just normally driving too lol.

Run a BOV VTA with a catless exhaust and you too can shoot fireballs like a boss.

Congrats on buying a speed, welcome to the forums. Be prepared to get alot of shit for buying a pu though, you'll get used to it.

I bought my speed at Haas, and Houston, does not have a shortage of speeds, theres an assload of speeds running around there.

:-( edit out that last part mr RICE!

welcome donate,mod =)!

Haha!

Congrats. And they're all around here in town, just gotta look close for them. Took me a while before I noticed them.

Congrats and welcome.

We're here. Go find us here on the forum, shouldn't be hard. Then from there you can find the FB group. There's a good number of us around.

Welcome. And yes you did wander into a troll pit in shout this morning, but twas your fault.

Haha! Yes.. yes it was.. I shoulda known better :p

speaking of, I've been going through these forum posts for hours now and I am really starting to get frustrated. Reading some of these posts is almost cryptic to me lol! It seems like every post I read about something I wanna know about, they look like this, " Yeah man FP looks good! I just put in a BOV so my ATR's look better with an OTS time. TIH was negligable however cause my SRI was on.TMICKMDITVDIUHFI" And I'm like... WHAT ARE YOU SAYING!!!

So yeah.. I've logged about 20 minutes a search for every acronym and some I still don't know what they are so I THINK I'm going to compile a list of noob things and put it into one post so that other noobs can go there when they are noobs lol.

Acronyms I screamed at
ATR
LC
FFS
TIP
AP access port?
SRI
TIP turbo inlet pipe?
TMIC too much information...clowns?
KMD
HPFP
ITV information technology vacuum?
DP down pipe i think..
RP race pipe?
TS
BOV blow off valve.
OTS over the shelf?
FP FALCON PUNCH
TIH
SWAS i googled this one. i know its something with traction control but, why disable it? there is a button for that lol.. must do somethin else too


so yeah..

Someone link the epic newb thread please?

This brownie pleases me.

Go here.....
http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...e-noobs-83959/

download tuning guide for newbies, it has a nice acronms list inside. Post a thanks to Abilor. This is probably the fastest way to get up to speed here, great read.

http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/forum/f511/

Read every sticky in here.

Hah, whats funny is Jeff Haas mazda is the only dealership that actually took me seriously and i always had my work done there because theyre mod friendly. Bolt ons of course, with a catted DP, but theyre good guys, they're not your typical "stealership" ... not so sure about the dude who said your turbo was broken haha but yeah i actually work right down the street at 6 and i10 and have seen quite a few. Welcome to the club man.

I bought mine from Jeff haas as well. I got a decent deal on the speed, but an epic deal on my trade in.

Welcome!!! now mod and donate.

you chose the right forum now lets hope you choose the right parts!!

Haha well thank you guys for the welcome and pointing me in the right direction! And apparently I must've just had a stroke of bad luck with the Jeff Haas guys. The guy helpin me (I won't name him) wouldn't even let me NEAR a speed 3. He tried to get me in a Mazda 3 s and pretty much was like "Well I know you want a speed 3 but you'll have fun in this! Here's the keys go test drive it". Then when I asked about the MS3 he was suddenly out of stock.. Between that and my broken turbo I just decided to leave lol. Oh they also said that my Carfax aid my miles were rolled back... None of the other 3 appraisers noticed my broken turbo or mileage discrepancy..

Thanks again guys you'll be hearin' more from me (with less noobish questions) when I start openin this thing up an freeing some HP and TQ(see what I did there ;))

Welcome aboard. What year was the RX8? I had a serious desire to get one of the newer models when the MS3 first came out. Mazda used to do these free driving days (went to 2 in Hialeah, FL). I saw the MS3 and was not impressed, was looking for an RX8. Drove the RX8 on a test track that day and decided against it. Never thought about the MS3 until about 2 years later.

Bought one in April, LOVE it!!! This thing rocks....:drive:

Welcome. I made the same jump from the RX-8 to the MS3. Glad I did, I was always paranoid about the motor going (had an 05) after a couple of guys I knew lost theirs bone stock. Loved the chassis though. Too bad there is no MX-8 with the DISI motor. That would have been the shit.

Thanks! It was an 06. Phenomenal car. It's a car that is driven in its own special way though lol. All of its power is at 5500-9700 RPM so when you're racing you keep it there. Since it has such great turning, you don't brake much going into corners. For example, I think if I were to drive a MS3 at a track, I would brake a LOT more going into the corner, and focus on keeping traction while feathering the gas until its safe to hit WOT. With the RX8, you pretty much make sure you don't brake any more than you have to since getting back up to speed is much more difficult than in almost any other car lol. Still, it hugged those corners so tight and the engine had such a unique sound, it was a fun lil car to drive! I actually beat my dad's 03 Porsche 911 base model at an HSCC autocross day :D

But yes.. I WISH somebody could have taken a picture of my face the first time I opened my MS3 up at 700 miles around a nice big loop exit. It was literally no joke like, 8D as I gripped the wheel accelerating out of the turn lol! I'm just hoping it handles as nicely at the autocross. Handling is a HUGE importance to me, way over speed.

Yeah.. The actual "reason" I had to let the 8 go, is cause I moved to a little town called Victoria to go to college at UHV. The school is 1.2 miles away from my apartment and Walmart, the farthest place on the edge of the city, is 4 miles away. Not to mention the city was constructed with a big middle finger to sports cars so EVERY drive way to EVERY store practically ripped my bumper off no matter what angle you came at. The short trips and horrible roads were just running the car into the ground(constant short trips in the 8 will ruin the engine). The highest speed limit in town is 45 mph, and that's on the loop. With nowhere to redline the car and my economy at about 15mpg, it just wasn't practical to keep anymore.

I totally agree with you on the MX-8 haha. I actually think they should've turboed the RX-8. It would DESTROY almost any RWD car in its price range both in speed and handling if they would've just turbo charged it! I know its not THAT simple but hey that's what engineers are for :p

@Frostbytes89

Hey man, welcome to the forums, congrats on the new car!

I have a special feeling towards RX8s, not in stock form, I originally wanted one, but kept reading about how troublesome they can be, wankel engines, poor mileage etc etc etc.

So that kinda pushed me away, but the other day we went to an Auto-X event, and there wa a chick driving an electric blue RX-8 with full track suspension setup, full motor work,
THAT THING SOUNDED SEXYYY :hump:

She also pulled the best times of the day, amazing shit.

Then some dude from a local (wack) mazda crew came on with his stock RX8, it sounded ehh, looked sloppy around the corners, etc.

One day I'll get myself into one of those, gonna have to find it used since they stopped making them.

Anyways, read up, you're on the right track. Donate, so you have access to shop manuals and the VIP section, also For Sale/Trade section will save you a lot more than what you donate, get ready for the mod bug, cause it bites hard with these cars!

Haha okay! I'll keep the mod bug in mind lol! I'll donate as soon as I can for sure. Yeah the RX-8 would make an EXCELLENT track car! I wouldn't buy one again as a daily driver. Not family friendly(despite the "4" seats lol), poor gas mileage, very temperamental to the way you drive it, and high maintenance. But if you're lookin for one I'd say go buy one that was used for racing in the Rolex series. You can pick em off for around 30k on a good day and they're already fitted with a 3rotor engine(one of the coolest sounding engines imo), fully gutted, race suspension, everything. Talk about fun on a track lol.

As a daily driver, as far as I have seen you can't beat this MS3 haha! I can raise a family in it, it has plenty of potential for even MORE power, fastest FWD nurburgring times(not that ill ever race there), and great handling too. Great find.

PS. I'm reading the hall of fail stickies. HAHAHAHAHA... that is all.

Feel you on the mileage. The small ass tank doesn’t help matters. I sure don’t miss carrying around a case of oil in the trunk or premixing at the gas station either. I do miss the chime coming on at 8800 and bombing out of a sweeper at 6K and having plenty of tach left before the next shift. Also, miss the respect from other car enthusiasts. The MS3 really doesn’t get much even though it’s a more capable car it’s perceived as juvenile. I get no questions, no nods of approval, just puzzled stares. Still a great car though!

Thats cause most people don't know what a mazdaspeed is, meh, its better to surprise them haha.

Guys I think the RWD controller module on our cars is broken, it only goes in FWD.

I'm a new MS3 owner in the Houston area also.... I bought mine ('12 Velocity Red w/2MT package) at Munday Mazda off FM1960 about 6 weeks ago. Traded in my Ram 1500 after spending $100 at the gas pump.... Went in with a check in hand and told them what I'd pay for it and they agreed. Been super happy ever since. About 300 miles after I got it, I drove it to Ohio and Illinois (3100 miles round trip) and it performed super well. I've been kinda lurking :privateeye: in the background trying to absorb as much as I can from the forum since this is my first turbo car. :beerchug:

I've been thinking of paying this way to... how much was the check for?

Thank you for the TL;DR. Shit was far too long for first thing this morning. Lol. Congrats on the new ride man.

My check was for $28,000. I got shorted on the trade in (surprising... I know) because there was some minor cosmetic damage to my truck which left me upside down a little. I ended up paying TT&L in cash and believe that I could have got out of there for around $26,000 if I wasn't upside down. I prefer to walk in with a check because it serves several purposes (IMHO)... 1) It prevents you from spending a lot more than what you want to. 2) If you're pre-approved for a loan (which I was... I only wish I could write a personal check), you already know your payments, interest, etc. and 3) I believe that it will give you more leverage because, to a dealer, a check in hand is just as good as cash in hand... meaning the dealer knows they're gonna get paid (if you're financing someone else is assuming the risk).

All in all, I thought it was a pretty smooth transaction (as haggling and car buying go)... my wife and I were in and out in about 4 hours. Ed Walker was my sales guy if you're in the market.

Welcome. Enjoy the mod bug, its catchy. I lasted 2 months here before RMM. Then it took hold.

Cheers,

G

Sent from my sortasmart HTC