The Shitbox's back and its better than ever! (and a '17 Mazda 3 rental review)

"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
10/05/2017 at 09:33 • Filed to: None

CHRISTMAS IS HERE - THE HESS TRUCK’S BACK!

I have no idea why that stupid hess truck jingle is stuck in my head, but anyways I have the Neon back from the shop with a nice new fuel pump and set of tank straps. And it drives great! Aside from the blinking check engine light, manual (depowered) steering, and atrociously bad front engine mount, this thing is MINT. I am replacing that motor mount and attempting to do my intake gasket today to get it that much better.

This thing is 1000x better than that shitty Nissan Versa, or the shittier Nissan Sentra, or that godawful Jeep Patriot that I had as rentals recently. The Mazda 3 I had was definitely special though. That was the best rental I’ve ever had forced upon me and only cost $262 for 7 days! I will miss that rental, it was a lovable race car.

Glad this was a Florida car, so much better without a front plate

I hate shiny black but this car still looks nice

Seats were bolstered decently for an economy car, leather and heating was nice to have. Overall a nice place to be.

Classy interior, nice touch points, decently weighted steering

Simple and informative, does the job perfectly

Radio controls below shifter were intuitive and nice rather than wasting time with the touch screen

Damn screen tumor sticking out. At least its not as bad as the ND Miata in here, but I just think its a silly design feature by Mazda

Obnoxiously large rear view mirror area. Don’t know what is up with that.

Traction control defeat, manual mode holds gears well, and tires arent trash. Good race car.

This car wins trophies!

That gas mileage though... I wonder how cars would do if the EPA reported “racing mileage”. I know my Miata does far better than this lol. I’ve never been able to get below 10mpg, even with MORE idling and MORE runs than this day. On the highway it was pretty good even with a foot still full of lead. Overall, pretty good and it takes 87 so it was cheap.

Anyways, time to enjoy the Neon some more! Just need to wash the damn thing. I replaced the wiper blades and added some washer fluid so now at least I can see out of the thing when wet. And I put premium in it as recommended by the manual and some forums. It managed to get a full tank, even though it shut off early and spit out some fuel at first lol. But typical hooptie problems.

DISCUSSION (16)

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 09:39

I need to take some interior shots. Every time I get in this thing I just want to scream OOOOOOOOH SO NINETIES!!

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 09:42

I really miss my 97 ACR. That was a fun little car. Very similar to your RT. So simple but a joy to drive. Got to watch the throttle lift oversteer... that makes for some entertainment on an autoX course.

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 09:44

Hells yeah, it looks just like my 99 Dakota RT inside. Plastic and what looks to be corduroy fabric everywhere.

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 09:46

Also, if you plan to autoX it, I highly recommend either a new drivers seat, or at least a good 5-6 point harness. Something that you can really get held in the seat with. Makes it so so much better on course.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc
10/05/2017 at 09:50

Yeah, I dont think I will end up having time to autox it unfortunately. And I really dont want to break it anyways lol. It is just a fun little run around for now.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc
10/05/2017 at 09:52

Oh yes, its even got that jazz confetti pattern for extra style! Plastic fantastic but its pretty comfortable. I mean in general the car is more comfortable than my Miata, more space and not on coilovers or a racing bucket seat lol.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc
10/05/2017 at 09:53

I really wish I could autocross this thing. But with the season coming to a close and me moving to California within about a month, I just wont have time. I’m not keeping the car so Id rather not break it before I sell it lol. I deifnitely hope to sell it to someone looking to autox it though, that would be ideal. Since its like 75% of the way there. Just needs some tires and a couple more maintenance items and then it would do well in a stock/street class.

Khalbali > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 10:19

Re: the mirror in the 3, all the safety sensors are in there, headlight/wiper sensors, laser for smart city brake support and if equipped, the camera for lane departure warning system.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Khalbali
10/05/2017 at 10:24

I figured as much, just seemed rather large. I was like, this thing must be sentient and always watching, always thinking, FULLY AWARE. It had smart city brake support, which I have no idea what exactly that does, but I turned it off for the autox to be safe. Wiper rain sensing didnt seem to do anything in a very light drizzle so I didnt test that out either.

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 10:25

Understandable. A set of race tires makes a world of difference on these. I drove mine on both and it was amazing the difference. When do you plan to sell it off?

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc
10/05/2017 at 10:29

I am going to list it for a couple of weeks before I move, so next week. But I will start with like an $1800 price point since I kinda want to keep it until the holidays so I dont have to rent a car when I come home to visit family. I think if I fix EVERYTHING, I could maybe get $1500 for it. But that will take some patience.

Id probably still take $1000 for it if I get lazy/nobody even asks about it and it sits for a while. Ideally/realistically like $1200-$1300 is a good goal.

Khalbali > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 10:30

Yeah it’s a huge box mine was older so it wasn’t standard equipment yet or I’m sure it would have bugged me. It’s just automatic braking under 20mph though higher speed functions are still optional and reserved for higher trims I think.

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 10:37

Did you find out about the timing belt replacement?

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc
10/05/2017 at 10:43

Well I dont have documentation one way or the other, so I would do the timing belt anyways if I were ever going to race it. But based on talking to other neon owners, I am 99% sure it has been done at least once in the cars life. If it hadnt been done by 160k, the belt would at least look bad. But it could have been done at 80k? 90k? That would mean its just about due now anyways, but not disastrously overdue. Ive been recommended to change it within ~30k at most.

Its easy enough to inspect the belt through the inspection cover, so I am reasonably confident in it for street driving.

SpeedSix > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
10/05/2017 at 13:10

Damn screen tumor sticking out. At least its not as bad as the ND Miata in here, but I just think its a silly design feature by Mazda

The problem I have with this design is how it seems like it was made to be closer to your line of sight (a good idea), but they didn’t actually make it adjustable to fit different lines of sight for different people. It just ends up a bit half-assed.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > SpeedSix
10/05/2017 at 13:33

I just wish they found a way to make it retract into the dash when not in use. Sure that seems kind of expensive but it just seems so tacked on like this. I hadnt thought about the height adjustments but it seemed to have good enough viewing angles to still be viewable at different heights. I would imagine attacking it from that design perspective is best.