My 2010 MS3 Review

[cudaman]

Taming the suspension then removes what is referred to as "bump steer" then? I have an MS3 and an 05 Neon SRT4 (highly modded) and any FWD car typically gets a certain amount of bump-steer. I dialed it out of the suspension in the SRT4. Not really needed on an MS3, though, unless you right on rough roads a lot..... Stock for stock, had the MS3 been out when I got my SRT4, I would have chosen the MS3 first. But they are both great cars, having a good "bang-for-the-buck" quotient.

 

[wcm250f]

sweet. thats what i would like to hear but has any heard of the motor popping and rods going

 

[Antonio DiMarco]

Motors popping are mostly due to modding without brains

thats what i figured after reading more. i got a question and i am sure alot of people hate this question. i heard mixed comments about the mazdaspeed 3 motor blowing up. what do you all say about this.

The majority of motors blowing up is due to people who don't know how to mod the MS3 properly. Unmodded the engines are pretty robust. Of course EVERY manufactured product has it's share of bugs. But I personally think most of the bad rap the MS3 receives is due to banana heads believing they can tune the car better than the engineers that built it. Don't get me wrong there are a few shops and private people who do know what they're doing but those who come to the forum crying usually threw something together in their garage over the weekend and didn't bother or didn't know how to do a proper tune.

 

[tiagotiago]

The majority of motors blowing up is due to people who don't know how to mod the MS3 properly. Unmodded the engines are pretty robust. Of course EVERY manufactured product has it's share of bugs. But I personally think most of the bad rap the MS3 receives is due to banana heads believing they can tune the car better than the engineers that built it. Don't get me wrong there are a few shops and private people who do know what they're doing but those who come to the forum crying usually threw something together in their garage over the weekend and didn't bother or didn't know how to do a proper tune.

+1

Like Antonio says, there ARE cases of people screwed with a faulty car, and there are several cases in which the dealership also tries to screw with its customers, but a lot of peolple also tweak their cars unproperly and then complain about the results, and there are several of us who've had a perfectly reliable car(....so far). Or course it would be a good idea to also get to know about your dealership, or see wich one of those close to you is the best choice, so that if you do run into problems, you can expect them to respond properly.

That said, also keep in mind these are highly strung turbo engines, and they need you to adjust your driving style accordingly (don't load the engine heavily before the turbo kicks in; altough I'm under the impression that the 2010 has a slightly different ECU programming to help with this). And like I said, the engine is pretty highly strung from factory, so if you're looking for big engine power mods, you'd probably do better with a Scoobie.