New Mazda3 Diesel
August 15, 2007 by George Skentzos
Australia’s favourite small car – the Mazda3 – is now available with a class-leading diesel engine that combines sporty driving with impressive fuel economy.
With class leading torque figures of 360Nm and 105kW of power the diesel manages to squeeze a combined average of 916km from a single tank using just 6.0L/100km.
At $30,500 for either the sedan or hatch, the diesel is slightly more expensive than the range topping SP23 (excluding MPS). However still manages to produce equipment levels identical to the slightly lesser spec Maxx Sports variant, albeit adding Dynamic Stability Control and Traction Control as standard.
“The sales success of the Mazda6 Diesel convinced us that a Mazda3 Diesel would find a ready market here.” Mazda Australia Managing Director Doug Dickson
Mazda Australia expects to sell 130 Mazda3 Diesel models a month with the sedan split likely to mirror the petrol variants, taking about 70 per cent of the business.
Print it: 
Is that the same Peugeot 2L diesel engine found in the Ford Focus diesel?
Shame there’s no Auto.
VW can do one, Mercedes had them in the diesel 2.2l Vito when they were FWD.
What the hell’s wrong with Ford?
A 6 speed gearbox sounds good, but it’s actully stupid in a small car with huge torque – my early Holdens were 3 speed in a heavier car with much less torque. Not saying they were the ultimate, just pointing out that people who like torquey engines do so because they DON’T want to change gears all the time.
If you are talking about an early 3 speed Holden, it’s probably is a Kingswood or a VB-VK Commodore. Both of these cars weigh less than the Ford Focus diesel (The Mazda3 diesel should be around the same weight too). :)
- The Ford Focus diesel weighs 1370kg
- The HZ Kingswood sedan weighs 1342kg.
- The VK Commodore Executive sedan weighs 1232kg.
I drove the 6 Diesel. Thought it was brilliant. Though the engine noise was very intrusive into the cabin at any revs. Euro diesel sedans and hatches were a little more refined. But the 6 was still impressive none the less.
I would imagine the 3 would be just as, if not more impressive….. same kW and Nm as the 6, in a 3. oooh baby.
Hey AA, had to chuckle when you assume I mean HZ for an early Holden. My first car was an FC Holden, just a few years earlier than the HZ….
But I am surprised at how low their weight was back then – it’s easy to assume that today’s cars have shed kilos when in fact the opposite is true :)
And I had forgotten that the FC only had 43 litre fuel tank, less than my Sirion GTVI…..
I still think that 6 speeds is too many gears for the Diesel, and a 4/5 speed auto would be ideal.
You can’t have too many gears, especially in cars with a relatively narrow power band.
I’d actually be interested in a Renault Scenic diesel, but that’s actually four-speed auto only!
I test drove the Diesel 3 yesterday.
The handling is very sharp, with rapid reactions to movement of the steering wheel. Acceleration is very sharp, especially once the turbo kicks in at about 2200RPM.
Engine noise is barely noticable, but road noise seems fairly loud.
At 70km/hr in fourth gear saw about 1700RPM on the tacho, but you needed to downshift before any real acceleration happened. I have a feeling that you’d only ever use sixth gear on the freeway. (I didn’t get a chance to put the car on a freeway, so I’m guessing here.)
I have doubts about the console (those red lights don’t grab me too much), and the instrument cluster is… interesting. Sort of like looking into 3 big plastic pipes.
Would I buy one, seeing it’s RRP is about $33,400? Quite likely at this stage – the new ‘08 Impreza does not grab me at all, and the Astra doesn’t appeal too much at all.