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Well MAZDA you stuffed this one up yet again, seriously you deserve to go broke.
A car company I love, but over the past 40 years the stupid decisions they make and the non existent advertising (US), what do they expect.
I really doubt that a New Mazda 3 was really worth it, as sales for this segment has been crashing for years (Toyota has changed their mind about making Corolla in new MTM plant).
At least Mazda 'might' recoup some of the cost with new CX-30 which is a 3 with larger wheels and a change in sheet metal skin.
Lets get back to the DUMB decisions with the 3, YES it is more Premium but a $2-3K price increase.
Then who was the idiot who said lets remove the touchscreen from the infotainment, as predicted EVERYONE is complaining about that and screen is too far away too.
They said for safety, but NO OTHER Car Brand does this?, sure it was not done to save a few dollars.
And then the packaging, Mazda does it again, WHY the hell was the Skyactiv X engine launch put back 6 months?, something wrong with it.
Would have been better off keeping existing 3 in production UNTIL the Engine was ready for new Mazda 3.
Again, Mazda you lose the momentum built up with this engine...all the years of publicity about the X.
And don't forget when the X Engine does come out it will be another $2-3K more.
You have owners and people screaming out for bigger engine and it takes YEARS before they do anything.
I probably would have bought a new AWD '3 hatch to replace the CX-3 if I hadn't picked snagged a steal on a used RF Launch Edition to replace the RX-8.
I mean, they already have gone very close to being broke a few times now, so that's nothing new.
Not sure how this whole luxury thing is gonna play out. Ultimately, people are more willing to stick with the familiar BMW/MB/Audi. You are paying for the badge on these cars.
Originally Posted by Chrishoky
Honestly they have nothing I'm interested in at this point besides the Miata.
Then I don't think you are interested in grocery getters at all.
Neither am I, but if I have to pick a brand, it's either Honda or Mazda.
Originally Posted by BigCajun
It's not just Mazda.
I have a suspicion what's causing profits to drop, but I don't want to get banned.
If Mazda can't make enough money, forget about it.
A sports car like that will be lucky to make any money. Some of them actually cost car companies money to have it - they offer it just for the image. Not a game Mazda can feasibly play now.
US is not the only car market, and it's a tough one. They may be focusing in growth areas like South America.
Explains the lack of advertising.
In my corner of Canada every other car is a 3 or a 6. They super well priced for their segments.
US is not the only car market, and it's a tough one. They may be focusing in growth areas like South America.
Explains the lack of advertising.
In my corner of Canada every other car is a 3 or a 6. They super well priced for their segments.
A lot of 6s? That's interesting.
In my area, I see a lot of 3s, but not so many 6s.
I have a buddy who bought a 6 2.5T and he actually looked at a few dealers' inventories. There are like 20~30 3s and 5 or 6 6s in each local dealer.
Yeah definitely more 3's than 6s. Like there are more Corollas than Camrys, its a market size thing.
Im not saying theyre the best cars, but they clealry found a market to exploit.
Keep in mind also that in the US cars are ludicrously cheap to own and operate compared to the rest of the world.
This means Mazda's proposition of cheap, fun cars really only has the fun going for it. Unfortunately most people dont give a damn about how fun their daily traffic exersize is.
In the rest of the world operating cost is a much bigger deal.
An 8 here cost a year of mean salary, while in the US, it was about 60% of mean salary. Thats a big difference.
Walk a mile in their shoes before criticizing their decisions.
MAZDA NAO SALES FOR JULY AND YEAR TO DATE.
Sales for the NEW 3 is down over 33% over the old model.
As I said over a year ago I don't see the market for the small car anymore (like the 3) it is ALL SUV.
Thank god the CX-30 (Mazda 3 platform) is soon to be released as the 3 is a dud, too expensive, not enough POWER.
IMO this current 'new' 3 will be the last, UNLESS they dramatically change their packaging, oh like a MAZDASPEED 3 or MPS3.
It was On and then Off again and now it is definitely OFF the table.
AGAIN HOW DUMB are Mazda they have NO SMALL Performance Car apart from MX-5 (a 2 seater) which you can not say it is a PERFORMANCE Model.
People are screaming for a Turbo 3.
THE trouble is the current new 3 Platform is Not Engineered for anything more than around 230 HP (Maximum), without major structural changes to Suspension and Front Engine Chassis Rails and Engine mounts.
Then the Mazda 6 also DOWN close to 34%, another Sedan that is NOT what it use to be.
And the ALL NEW 6 will be the Vision Concept with the new Skyactiv inline 6 cylinder (and I told you guys Mazda needed a V6 or 6 Cylinder).
A 6 Cylinder should have been made and used YEARS AGO.
Mazda's largest Export Market is North America and Australia, BOTH countries want POWER, and time and time again they Ignore the facts and do not listen, in fact Mazda dictates what you will get.
Europe is a good market, UK is doing well, but Australia sells almost 3 times as many Mazda's as UK.
The the rest of EU regulations are forcing Car Companies to go electric and small turbo engines (no more Diesels), if you don't then you are taxed, Mazda in Europe already has a Tax fine bill of close to $70 mil Euro's which they cant offset or off-sell.
My impression has always been that, while a lot of people love hot hatches, they don't really sell that well, no? So I am not sure how much a Mazdaspeed 3 will change things. Keyboard warriors love hot hatches, but they hate paying the bills.
And is a 2.5(180ish BHP) 3 really that slow when compared to a 1.5T(175 BHP) Civic? It's faster than a 1.8 Corolla(134 BHP) for sure.
The main problem with Mazda family cars IMO is the rear legroom. I feel like a Civic has the same rear legroom as a 6 when I sat in both a while ago. A 3 Sedan feels very squeezed. That probably turns a lot of people off.
As for the 6 cylinder engines... Same thing, I don't know how that's gonna change things much. When Accord had the 3.5 V6(now replaced by 2.0T), the take rate for the V6 is about 20%(out of all Accords). Camry V6 supposedly has a take rate of 9% or something like that.
A 6-cylinder is nice and all but I just don't see how it would play out with economy of scales. If they only put the 6-cylinder engines in the 6 that would make no sense. I would think they need a few other models in their lineup to use the I6 to make the R&D worth it.
There is one market where the power complaint is more serious: China. They sell 1.5 and 2.0 3 there. No 2.5 engine option, and the 1.5 engine is underpowered for anything bigger than a 2. The performance looks especially bad against a Civic 1.5T when it takes about 12 seconds to get from 0 to 60. I know the whole "we don't want to play the small turbo game" thing with Mazda, but it seriously needs to do that in China and other displacement sensitive regions.
Last edited by UnknownJinX; 08-01-2019 at 06:56 PM.
^ My impression is that Mazda builds cars for handling, and very few people get that nowadays. The US, at least, has shifted toward trucks and SUVs, and Mazda no longer has a truck, and their SUVs lag behind in enough key areas to make them less compelling than the competition. I don't care much about infotainment nonsense (BT is enough for me), but the rest of the country really, really does, and Mazda is behind here as well.
Anecdote...
My wife drove a CX-7 GT for 5 years. She loved it, or so she thought. I always thought it was down on power. She didn't know the difference, unless we drove it to CO, where it wheezed all through the mountains. Then, I got her an RDX. WOW!!! She loves the torque that V6 puts out, and how it stops RIGHT NOW, when she touches the brake. She pulls away from me at stoplights. By a lot. And, my 4L Tacoma isn't exactly low on torque. Fast forward a couple years. I got a 2019 CX-5 as a loaner for a week, when my RX-8 engine was being replaced. It was fun to drive, if you know how to push its chassis, but it had no appreciable power, and used engine and transmission PCM tricks in attempt to give the illusion of power. Neither of us were impressed.
Modern drivers do not push a chassis to more than 30% of its capability. (I am a high performance driver education instructor; I live this fact.) Mazda focuses on the 70% beyond. Very few notice. When Mazda puts out ads about exhilaration, modern drivers envision their CarPlay beats to be one-note bass pumping, while it zips away from a stoplight in a very straight line, right up to 5mph below the speed limit, which is as fast as they can go and still pay attention to their Facetagram.
FCA reported increased profits.
North America sales for Sedans, down over 33%, SUV's (Trucks) for Mazda last month virtually all are UP (apart from CX-9).
YTD, Mazda is down 14%..
On the back of foreign exchange rates and reduced inventory. Actual shipments are down. Net revenues flat.
From Q2 2019 report:
• Shipments down 12%, primarily due to dealer stock reductions (down ~80 thousand units from Q1 2019), partially offset by increased Ram pickup truck volumes and all-new Jeep Gladiator production ramp-up • Net revenues flat, with favorable model mix and foreign exchange translation effects offset by lower volumes and negative net pricing from unfavorable Canadian dollar foreign exchange impacts
Toyota posted an 8.7 percent rise in operating profit to 741.9 billion yen ($6.9 billion) in the April-June quarter, helped by a slight increase in vehicle sales.
Honda reiterated its forecast for a 6 percent increase in operating profit to 770 billion yen ($7.2 billion) for this fiscal year.
Lexus led the U.S. luxury segment in July despite a sales decline. Mercedes-Benz posted a big gain to narrow the gap behind year-to-date leader BMW.
Another issue that gives me the gripes and that is so called Expert Motoring Journalists, (make that a privileged person who likes cars and gets to fly around the world at the expense of car manufacturers for nice write ups)..
Anyway a UK 'expert' has just written a local article about the CX-30 and new Skyactiv X engine.. quote ..
The CX-30 may not be the obvious choice, but it has a lot of positive attributes. While the Skyactiv-X feels a little lacking in oomph, it’s still significantly more powerful than the downsized turbo-petrol motors used in rival models and should provide similar running costs.
This is what gets me, these guys get to drive around in all sorts of cars including very fast and powerful ones, what the hell does his quote mean?
What does he expect, it is more powerful than 'normal turbo engines' ( what a 1.5l ) and he went on to say he was underwhelmed and the engine needed working hard to get anything out of it?
^ My impression is that Mazda builds cars for handling, and very few people get that nowadays. The US, at least, has shifted toward trucks and SUVs, and Mazda no longer has a truck, and their SUVs lag behind in enough key areas to make them less compelling than the competition. I don't care much about infotainment nonsense (BT is enough for me), but the rest of the country really, really does, and Mazda is behind here as well.
Anecdote...
My wife drove a CX-7 GT for 5 years. She loved it, or so she thought. I always thought it was down on power. She didn't know the difference, unless we drove it to CO, where it wheezed all through the mountains. Then, I got her an RDX. WOW!!! She loves the torque that V6 puts out, and how it stops RIGHT NOW, when she touches the brake. She pulls away from me at stoplights. By a lot. And, my 4L Tacoma isn't exactly low on torque. Fast forward a couple years. I got a 2019 CX-5 as a loaner for a week, when my RX-8 engine was being replaced. It was fun to drive, if you know how to push its chassis, but it had no appreciable power, and used engine and transmission PCM tricks in attempt to give the illusion of power. Neither of us were impressed.
Modern drivers do not push a chassis to more than 30% of its capability. (I am a high performance driver education instructor; I live this fact.) Mazda focuses on the 70% beyond. Very few notice. When Mazda puts out ads about exhilaration, modern drivers envision their CarPlay beats to be one-note bass pumping, while it zips away from a stoplight in a very straight line, right up to 5mph below the speed limit, which is as fast as they can go and still pay attention to their Facetagram.
My not-so-educated opinion here:
Mazda has long boasted that it caters to a small market of people who care about handling, but the thing is that it has been shrinking like you mentioned, as more people care about connectivity features. Might explain the dropping sales then. I am more or less in the same boat, have an updated nav system and Bluetooth music streaming in the S2 RX-8 GT and I will be fine. Notifications can wait, too busy shifting at the 9k redline here, LOL.
And I mean, I do Autocross and I don't think I am pushing the car to the limit simply because I am not trained enough. I am considering some performance driving lessons in my next car. A lot of it actually comes down to fear and knowing the limit of your car, and yeah, not a lot of people will really push the car.
Originally Posted by Chrishoky
I like the hatchback civic quite a lot, even with its crazy styling.
The normal Civic hatches are okay IMO, just a different approach from Mazda's more elegant lines.
Below are links from US and Australia asking WHY has the all new Mazda 3 Sales tanked.
Well as I said in First post Mazda's decision to even Make a new 3 was frankly Dumb.
ALL the indicators showed small car unit sales down 30% in 2019 and the indicators were all going south in 2018.
YES, it is difficult after Mazda had invested $millions in all new 3 Model, we all know the CX-30 (STUPID NAME, should be CX-4) is a Mazda 3 with bigger wheels.
Apart from the hefty price increase which can be attributed to exchange rate and the extra QUALITY Parts (Premium).
As we know it is the 'simple' things that can be a DEAL BREAKER, and this one is a doozie,
Who ever made the decision to NOT have a Touchscreen for Infotainment MUST be sacked, ONLY Mazda is taking this feature away....DUMB.
Then the CHEAP rear suspension, whatever they tell you it is to save $$'s, BUT the very simple Torsion Beam set up does reduce Road Noise
dramatically. Mazda basically benchmarked/copied the Peugeot 3008 suspension.
Road noise does create problems when used with multi link and multi bushed setups (like all old 3's).
Again I am concerned IF Mazda makes an all new 6....will it sell??
07-31-2019, 05:01 AM
