Mazda 3 Review 2024

So, we’ve established the Mazda 3 probably isn’t a wise choice if you’re looking for a practical hatchback to carry all of the family (and the associated paraphernalia), but a used Mazda 3 is still an excellent choice for many buyers.

Like many Japanese manufacturers, Mazda has a good reputation for reliability and owners are generally very happy with their cars. It’s had a blip in recent years with its diesel engines, but the majority of Mazda 3s are powered by unstrained, non-turbo petrol engines, which ought to be very reliable (and efficient).

While the Mazda badge won’t appeal to those who are overly image-conscious, the Mazda 3 is still a very stylish choice with a superb cabin. It’s up there with the ubiquitous Volkswagen Golf in many ways and, while new prices are steep, it represents very good value for money second-hand.

The Volkswagen Golf is seen as the car to beat in this category, and the Mazda 3 is just as is good, if not better, in many areas. You should also consider a Ford Focus, which is great to drive and offers good value for money, while the Skoda Scala is a roomy, budget-friendly alternative. 

Consider the fresh-looking Peugeot 308, too, and affordable contenders like the Kia Ceed and the now-stylish Vauxhall Astra. At a push, you could even consider the Mazda 3 as an alternative to premium hatchbacks like the Audi A3, Mercedes A-Class and BMW 1 Series, such is the quality of its design and interior.

You’ll have no complaints about the quality of the Mazda 3’s interior. It feels very premium, with plush materials and classy chrome finishes in abundance.

Everything you touch - from the electric window switches to the steering wheel and the buttons for the heated seats - feel a step above other cars in its class. The doors close with a satisfying ‘thunk’, the soft-touch dash and door trim feels like leather, and you won’t find any stray stitching or hastily-finished seams in the seats.

Even the most affordable models feel classy. Sport models and above get more chrome trim highlights, while you’ll need a GT Sport for leather seats. But even the standard cloth seats feel well-finished. Mazdas generally take day-to-day abuse from family life pretty well, too.

If you’ve got the sense of direction of a headless chicken, don’t worry: all Mazda 3 models come with the same excellent navigation system. This is displayed via an 8.8-inch display positioned on top of the dashboard.

This isn’t a touchscreen infotainment system. Instead, it’s controlled with a rotary controller (Mazda calls it a ‘multimedia commander’, which we quite like), positioned in the perfect place to operate with your left hand. Or your right hand, if you’re in the passenger seat.

It makes scrolling through menus and inputting addresses on the move much easier than with a touchscreen system. It seems to well work with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (both of which are also standard), too. 

A head-up display projected onto the windscreen is also standard across the Mazda 3 range. This displays information such as navigation directions, vehicle speed and traffic signs. A surprising highlight of this is the clarity - we’re used to head-up displays sometimes being a bit blurred and, well, rubbish… especially on ‘mainstream’ cars like this.

We’ve mentioned the wide range of adjustment in the front seats and that includes allowing you to sit nice and low - ideal if you’re tall and need the headroom. There’s plenty of legroom, too, while a relatively wide cabin means you won’t be brushing shoulders with your passenger.

There are plenty of little cubbies for storing odds and ends in the Mazda 3, while the door pockets are big enough to squeeze a water bottle in. The central cubby box is particularly useful.

Things aren’t so great in the back, however. The Mazda 3’s swooping roofline eats into headroom, so anyone over six foot will be in danger of banging their head on the roof. Adults will find their knees pushing into the front seats, while small rear windows mean it feels quite claustrophobic back there. 

The Mazda 3 Saloon is ever so slightly more spacious in the back. Legroom is the same, but there's fractionally more space for your head and shoulders (not the shampoo) thanks to a slightly higher roofline, so if you're regularly carrying tall adults in the back, it's the one to go for. 

The outer rear seats have ISOFIX anchor points, which help when fitting child seats. Access isn’t the easiest, though - the door openings are relatively narrow and you obviously have to bend down to strap a child in. An SUV like the Mazda CX-30 might be a better choice if you’re looking for a family car (although that’s not the most versatile option, either).

The Mazda 3 hatchback's boot capacity is 351 litres, which is adequate but far from the biggest in its class. It’s a usefully square shape, but there’s quite a high lip that you'll need to lift heavy items over when loading. The seats drop easily enough, providing a relatively flat load bay. 

The Mazda 3 Saloon's boot capacity of 450 litres is a good deal healthier - on paper at least. Certainly you can fit more stuff in it, but because the saloon has a shallower boot opening, you'll struggle to get bulky items in. Doing the weekly food shop? The saloon is best. Carrying yet-to-be-erected furniture from a well-known Swedish outlet? You'll want the hatchback. 

There isn’t any room for a spare wheel under the boot floor in either model, so you’ll have to make do with a tyre repair kit in the case of a puncture. That's hardly uncommon these days, though. 

In terms of dimensions, the Mazda 3 hatchback is 4460mm long, 1795mm wide and 1435mm high. The Mazda 3 Saloon is 4660mm long, 1795mm wide and 1440mm high - a full 200mm longer and fractionally taller. 

There are two petrol engines available in the Mazda 3: both 2.0-litres, one a Skyactiv-G with 122PS and a Skyactiv-X with 180PS. Both have mild-hybrid technology to help out the engine, while both are available with six-speed manual or automatic gearboxes. The more powerful model is also sold with four-wheel drive.

The entry-level engine does feel a little bit underpowered. It’s a naturally-aspirated unit, which means it hasn’t got a turbo like most rivals. So, while a 2.0-litre might sound speedy, it actually feels slower than a 1.0-litre Ford Focus. This is because it lacks punch low down in the rev range: you really need to work it hard to make progress, and that comes at the expense of fuel economy.

You’ll probably find it up to the job if most of your driving is around town and you’re not looking for speedy performance, but venture out of town and you'll be working it harder and dropping down gears to get up inclines. 

The Skyactiv-X does without a turbo, too, but 180PS means it feels healthier than the entry-level engine. It’ll still take some getting used to if the engine in your previous car was turbocharged because, again, you'll need to stir the gearbox a bit and won't find it responds as well from low revs. However, as it covers 0-62mph in 8.2 seconds, it’ll be quick enough for the majority of buyers. 

In 2021 the output of the Skyactiv-X engine (now called e-Skyactiv X) was increased to 186PS. More importantly, torque (low-down grunt) also increased a bit. It hasn't made a huge difference, but it seems to rev out more cleanly and feel less gutless at the low end of the rev range. It's also a bit quieter. 

So what about diesel? It might be seen as the devil’s juice these days, but diesels still make a lot of sense for those who cover a lot of miles. Mazda initially offered the latest 3 with a 1.8-litre diesel, which actually suited the car very well and was our pick of the range. When the Skyactiv-X arrived a few months after launch, the diesel was deemed redundant so was dropped from the range.

If you do want a diesel (and you should only really consider it if you cover more than 12,000 miles a year, predominantly on the motorway), you’ll have to look for a 2019 model on the used market. There are a few about, so you might get lucky.

If you’ve driven an alternative with a three-cylinder turbocharged engine, you may have noticed how buzzy and unrefined it is. The advantage of a big 2.0-litre petrol like those used in the Mazda 3 is how quiet they are. You’ll barely notice the noise of the entry-level engine, while its mild-hybrid system means the stop-start system operates seamlessly. It’s not a ‘proper’ hybrid, though, so don’t go expecting to mooch around town under electric power.

The more powerful Skyactiv-X engine is a little less refined. Mazda says it uses diesel-like technology to provide incredible efficiency for a petrol. As such, it does sound quite distinctive - not quite as rumbly as a diesel, but not far off. In 2021 this was improved a bit: there's a smoother engine note in general. 

Mazda’s engineers have ensured you won’t notice any nasty vibrations through the pedals or gear lever. Talking of which, both the manual and automatic gearboxes are easy to recommend - it just comes down to personal preference, really.

The manual is direct, with a light clutch pedal, and its slick shift action will make it the one enthusiastic drivers go for. The torque-converter automatic, meanwhile, might not be quite as quick to respond as the Golf’s DSG dual-clutch transmission, but it rarely gets flustered and should be a reliable choice.

The Mazda 3 is one of the safest cars of its class, with a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating. It was awarded a near-perfect 98 per cent for adult occupants, along with a very impressive 87 per cent for child occupants. NCAP gave it 81 per cent for protecting vulnerable road users, while its extensive list of standard safety technology meant it scored 73 per cent for safety assist.

There’s no need to go hunting for a high-spec example for all the latest safety systems. They all come with a lane-keep assist system with lane-departure warning, as well as blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. This’ll alert the driver of approaching vehicles when reversing out of a parking space.

An autonomous emergency braking system, known as front smart brake support, is standard across the range. This can alert the driver before applying the brakes if it detects an impending collision. Rear and rear-cross smart brake support systems are standard on GT Sport Tech models, as well as a driver-monitoring camera which’ll suggest you take a break if it detects signs of tiredness.

Isofix child seat anchorage points are fitted as standard to the outer rear seats.

Mazda sells some extremely reliable cars, and we have no reason to believe the latest Mazda 3 will buck this trend. The only issues we've seen in Mazda models in recent years have been related to the diesel engines. As most Mazda 3 models are petrol-powered, that shouldn't be an issue.

In the latest HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, Mazda placed 8th (out of around 30) in the list of the most reliable car manufacturers.

Insurance groups range from 15 to 24. That’s pretty high (the Volkswagen Golf starts from group 7, while the Ford Focus starts from group 8), but reflective of the Mazda 3’s high equipment levels and large-capacity engines. Like-for-like, the difference isn’t that big but it’s still worth getting quotes before you commit if you’re concerned.

If you're buying a Mazda 3 new, the good news is that the 2021 update's efficiency improvement means that the first-year road tax (VED) rate is fairly low. However, it depends on your gearbox.

Go for the manual and both engines will cost £210 a year in that first-year rate. But the automatic? That'll be £255 for both. Not a huge sacrifice, but it'll also be less efficient. 

Buying used? The first owner will have taken care of the first year’s VED, so you’ll pay a flat rate of £180 a year in tax.

A used Mazda 3 will cost you slightly more than the equivalent Ford Focus or SEAT Leon, but it does offer good value for money in terms of standard equipment.

Highlights of the entry-level Mazda 3 SE-L include automatic headlights and windscreen wipers, 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights and rear parking sensors. Even the most affordable model gets the same 8.8-inch infotainment system as the rest of the range, comprising navigation, DAB radio, Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto.

The Mazda 3 SE-L Lux builds on this with a long list of desirable features including an auto-dimming driver door mirror, an auto-dimming rear-view mirror, front parking sensors, a reversing camera, smart keyless entry, dual-zone climate control, heated front seats and - perhaps most surprisingly - a CD player.

Mazda 3 Sport models feature a sportier look thanks to 18-inch alloy wheels and rear privacy glass. They also feature adaptive LED headlights, a frameless auto-dimming rear-view mirror and various chrome interior trim highlights. Automatic models come with paddle-shifters for changing gear.

Mazda 3 GT Sport trim comes with black leather seats, a power-adjustable driver’s seat (with memory linked to the door mirror and active driving display), power driver lumbar adjustment and a heated steering wheel. It also gets a 12-speaker Bose premium surround sound system.

Tech fans should look for a Mazda 3 GT Sport Tech, which adds 360-degree cameras, driving monitoring, cruising and traffic support, rear crossing smart brake support, rear smart brake support and front cross-traffic alert.

In 2021, Mazda added a sunroof to Sport Lux, GT Sport and GT Sport Tech models with the more powerful engine. Since then, trim levels on brand new Mazda 3s have changed names, now being known as Prime-Line, Centre-Line, Homura, Exclusive-Line and Takumi, and these are as well equipped as ever.