I just joined the Mazda3 crowd

[Chefsp0t]

Hey guys. I just bought a 2009 Mazda3 hatch 5 speed today. So far I LOVE the car. It's everything I was looking for and more. Now I can finally retire my Mx6 to weekend driving and have a nice daily driver too.

It's copper red mica color.

 

[icspots]

Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the forums. Copper red is one of my top three or four favorite colors.

 

[Brock]

already got the seat dirty! lol

 

[Akaveli]

Welcome to the forums man. Your car looks good.

 

[Chefsp0t]

Thanks for the welcome guys. I can't wait to enjoy the hell out of my new car!

I also have a 1995 mx6 that's my fun/project car. It's not reliable enough anymore to drive daily. I have a thing for Mazdas.

already got the seat dirty! lol

Lol, my mom's dog, Kobe, a Shiba Inu, decided to check the car out when I left the door opened. He left me nice muddy footprints all over the whole interior. I had the car home for about 10 minutes...

Oh well, Mazda will clean everything when I take it back to have the fabric protection applied. I'm also getting the paint protection put on and the underbody sprayed. In addition to those things I have a Mazdaspeed shift kit ordered. I don't like how long the shifter throw is now.

Are there any other mods that I should look into? I don't have much spare cash right now but I can start saving. I've heard that an upgraded rear motor mount is a good idea.

 

[icspots]

Buy a third key. I know it sounds silly, but here's the reason. If you have two working keys you can program in more yourself (up to eight) in about 15 seconds. If you only have one working key (say you lose one) then the dealer has to do the programming for you which takes about 45 minutes and they'll charge you for an hour of labor. Soooo if you buy a third key now and program it yourself for free you can then lose one in the future and then just buy another key and program it again. You would be able to buy/replace probably four keys before spending as much as one dealer replaced key.

Even better, if you buy from Jason at www.onlinemazdaparts.com (one of the forum sponsors) then he'll cut the key for you so all you have to do is program it in. The key runs about $22.

 

[Chefsp0t]

I still have to pick up my second set of keys from them. The salesman who took me for the test drive the day before I bought it accidentally took them home.

 

[tsunami]

rear motor mount for sure, a sts is a good mod as well as a rear sway bar... those three are pretty cheap and deffinatly add smiles to the miles. if you want to go a bit further lowering springs would be next eibach pros are nice and subtle as well as the ms3 stockers (sway bar to for that matter can usually be picked up cheap) as far as power mods go intake and exhaust are nice noise adders but in reality this is a 4 cyl so unless you go big for n/a or go turbo whats the point?

 

[Chefsp0t]

Thanks man. I was leaning towards the eibach pro kit since I liked it on my other mazda. I like their sway bar kit too.

I want to get some HID's in the headlights too. I need an h7 bulb correct? Are you guys using 35 or 55 watt kits? I am looking at the ones from DDM

Also, if I want to replace the fogs with yellow bulbs am I looking for H11 halogen? I don't really need HID fogs.