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Hello, my name is Jake and I live near Seattle, WA. I am a UTi graduate and I just got my mazda 3 a little over a week ago (and put 700 miles on it already). I love it. I drive vehicles all day long as part of my job (automotive technician for a little over two years now) and this is one of the finest looking and built cars for the price I have driven over the past few years. Glad to be part of the mazda community now and also looking forward to building a sweet little mazda 3 and maybe helping out anyone with some questions reguarding mechanical issues and mods. This is the first brand new vehicle I have ever owned also. I have a few questions about it if anyone has any info it would be greatly appriciated. I just had cold air intake, exhaust and a short shifter installed yesterday. I got it up on the rack in my shop today to take a look to see what they did and if they messed anything up. The Mazda tech who installed it managed to damage the heat shield above it a little and I noticed some of the shield under the front bolts looked a little rounded. Sure am glad I had the dealership install this stuff so they could jack it up already. i take pride in my work and try to take the utmost care when installing parts for customers and the work they performed was by far under par.
Question 1: why did they leave the stock exhaust collector on the vehicle? Is this a correct install for the mazda speed exhaust? I understand it may be part of the emmision system on the vehicle but from my experiance they dont really do much besides cause restriction.
Question 2: Why is the exhaust system installed with a bunch of exhaust clamps? The floor model in the show room had 1 clamp and the rest was full exhaust tubing. Little bit misleading in my opinion. Everytime i have had exhaust installed it has been fully welded which usually provides better sound and performance. If i take this to an exhaust shop and have them welp the tubing were the clamps are installed and remove the cheap clamps will this void the warranty on the exhaust system? Also i started my m3 tonight and heard a nice exhaust rattle already which made me even more upset. Looks like im sending it back to the dealership
Question 3: After the short shifter install it is off to the side which im sure is correct, but the actual shift throw still seems the same (about 3 to 4 inches) which in my opinion isnt really a short shifter. (i had an integra with short shifter and the throw was about an inch between gears) I went to the dealership today and sat in a stock m3 again to get a feel for a stock shift throw and it doesnt feel much different than the short shifter. I also understand the short shifter is only a 20% reduce in throw but i figured that would be noticable. Is there a way to install a short shifter to put the shifter off to the side but bypass the actual throw?
Question 4: I have the bose sound system which sounds great but i noticed the door panels seem to shake and cause a rattle. If anything is in the door panel storage compartments it rattles like crazy. I also had a problem tonight when i started my M3 (after i heard the exhaust rattle) i took it out on the road and the speakers all sounded blown and distorted. after a min or two they seem to come back to life and sound normal again. Anyone heard of or had this problem? Im thinkin about asking them to replace the speakers. (when i got into the car with the salesman he brought some bose cd and put it in then turned the bass up to 6 (i run it at 4 with treble at 2 and have the volume around 30 to 35) he then cranked the volume to max which terrified me cause i had just bought this thing and i didnt want blown speakers before i left the dealership. i just bit my lip and listened. it sounded good and didnt hear any of the speakers sound like they were giving. I hope he didnt damage them at that time. My brother in law was a salesman at a mazda dealership and said the speakers were limited on output so they dont blow. Dont know if he is right or not.
I guess im feeling kinda ripped off after seeing the cheap exhaust design and not being able to notice any shorter throw. For what i payed for the parts and install i could have done it myself with better parts and way cheaper. but voided warranty.
If anyone knows about these subjects and has an info that would be great.
The cold air is a great add on tho and i notice first gear seems alot more responsive than before. Feels like a little more torque. Sorry for such a long post as this is my first one but again glad to be here its a great forum with alot of good info and im loving my new mazda3 (cheap aftermarket mazda parts and all). Hopefully my experiance in this industry will be able to help you guys a little also.
I posted this to the ms3 section on accident, prolly get a better response in the section it should be in. I will post some pict of my M3 hopefully this week sometime.
Hello, my name is Jake and I live near Seattle, WA. I am a UTi graduate and I just got my mazda 3 a little over a week ago (and put 700 miles on it already). I love it. I drive vehicles all day long as part of my job (automotive technician for a little over two years now) and this is one of the finest looking and built cars for the price I have driven over the past few years. Glad to be part of the mazda community now and also looking forward to building a sweet little mazda 3 and maybe helping out anyone with some questions reguarding mechanical issues and mods. This is the first brand new vehicle I have ever owned also. I have a few questions about it if anyone has any info it would be greatly appriciated. I just had cold air intake, exhaust and a short shifter installed yesterday. I got it up on the rack in my shop today to take a look to see what they did and if they messed anything up. The Mazda tech who installed it managed to damage the heat shield above it a little and I noticed some of the shield under the front bolts looked a little rounded. Sure am glad I had the dealership install this stuff so they could jack it up already. i take pride in my work and try to take the utmost care when installing parts for customers and the work they performed was by far under par.
Question 1: why did they leave the stock exhaust collector on the vehicle? Is this a correct install for the mazda speed exhaust? I understand it may be part of the emmision system on the vehicle but from my experiance they dont really do much besides cause restriction.
Question 2: Why is the exhaust system installed with a bunch of exhaust clamps? The floor model in the show room had 1 clamp and the rest was full exhaust tubing. Little bit misleading in my opinion. Everytime i have had exhaust installed it has been fully welded which usually provides better sound and performance. If i take this to an exhaust shop and have them welp the tubing were the clamps are installed and remove the cheap clamps will this void the warranty on the exhaust system? Also i started my m3 tonight and heard a nice exhaust rattle already which made me even more upset. Looks like im sending it back to the dealership
Question 3: After the short shifter install it is off to the side which im sure is correct, but the actual shift throw still seems the same (about 3 to 4 inches) which in my opinion isnt really a short shifter. (i had an integra with short shifter and the throw was about an inch between gears) I went to the dealership today and sat in a stock m3 again to get a feel for a stock shift throw and it doesnt feel much different than the short shifter. I also understand the short shifter is only a 20% reduce in throw but i figured that would be noticable. Is there a way to install a short shifter to put the shifter off to the side but bypass the actual throw?
Question 4: I have the bose sound system which sounds great but i noticed the door panels seem to shake and cause a rattle. If anything is in the door panel storage compartments it rattles like crazy. I also had a problem tonight when i started my M3 (after i heard the exhaust rattle) i took it out on the road and the speakers all sounded blown and distorted. after a min or two they seem to come back to life and sound normal again. Anyone heard of or had this problem? Im thinkin about asking them to replace the speakers. (when i got into the car with the salesman he brought some bose cd and put it in then turned the bass up to 6 (i run it at 4 with treble at 2 and have the volume around 30 to 35) he then cranked the volume to max which terrified me cause i had just bought this thing and i didnt want blown speakers before i left the dealership. i just bit my lip and listened. it sounded good and didnt hear any of the speakers sound like they were giving. I hope he didnt damage them at that time. My brother in law was a salesman at a mazda dealership and said the speakers were limited on output so they dont blow. Dont know if he is right or not.
I guess im feeling kinda ripped off after seeing the cheap exhaust design and not being able to notice any shorter throw. For what i payed for the parts and install i could have done it myself with better parts and way cheaper. but voided warranty.
If anyone knows about these subjects and has an info that would be great.
The cold air is a great add on tho and i notice first gear seems alot more responsive than before. Feels like a little more torque. Sorry for such a long post as this is my first one but again glad to be here its a great forum with alot of good info and im loving my new mazda3 (cheap aftermarket mazda parts and all). Hopefully my experiance in this industry will be able to help you guys a little also.
I posted this to the ms3 section on accident, prolly get a better response in the section it should be in. I will post some pict of my M3 hopefully this week sometime.
