Engine revolution
I’d forgotten how much I liked this car. The Mazda3 is one of the best looking hatchbacks you can buy – better looking than a Golf and the Ford Focus.
In a world in which cars tend to all look the same or at best share the same basic features, this Mazda stands out as being a bit different. There’s a hint of Alfa Romeo Alfasud in it and a line or two of Vauxhall Astra Mk2. It’s refreshing inside, too.
Mazda likes to do things differently and buck trends (as we’ll see under the bonnet in a moment) so it doesn’t fit the 3 with a huge touchscreen or a bank of 3D digital instruments. Instead there’s a small screen on top of the dashboard and conventional dials with only the central speedometer containing digitally displayed information in its centre.
No ambient lighting or other gimmicks. Just a straightforward attractive cabin that’s as well put together as any rival from Germany.
Now to the engine and the reason we’re revisiting the Mazda3. Mazda likes to drive its own road and nothing emphasises that more than our test car’s engine. While most manufacturers go for small capacity turbocharged engines,
Mazda has stuck with larger capacity units like the 2.0-litre engine in this car. But not a conventional one. Mazda calls it the Skyactiv-x engine and it cleverly combines the advantages of a diesel and a petrol engine without the drawbacks of either. So the economy and torque of a diesel but the smoothness and power of a petrol.
In a petrol engine the air and fuel mixture enters the combustion chambers and ignites by a spark from a spark plug.
A diesel engine doesn’t need a spark plug because as the fuel enters the combustion chamber full of hot compressed air it ignites spontaneously. Mazda’s Skyactiv-x engine has such a high compression ratio the petrol/air almost spontaneously combusts.
A spark plug fires and ignites a small fireball that increases the temperature and pressure in the combustion chamber so that the fuel then combusts. The majority of the air and fuel in the chamber is combusted through compression ignition. Mazda calls the process Spark Controlled Compression Ignition, or SPCCI for short.
The engine runs in SPCCI mode most of the time apart from when started from cold and warming up, and when it’s under high load. When it’s in SPCCI mode it burns 20% less fuel than its equivalent conventional petrol engine and produces 10% more torque.
Mazda has tweaked the engine since its launch a couple of years ago and calls it the e-skyactiv X. It now features a mild-hybrid system and the compression ratio has been slightly lowered to 15:1 ( from 16.3:1) and the power has been increased to 186PS from 180PS.
The Mazda3 rides comfortably and
has excellent handling that makes it a lot of fun to drive. Our test drive in this £28,005 GT Sport included a run up to the Peak District from London and some driving on the excellent roads up there, and a rather brisk return back home on the M40. None of it using an economical driving style but still the car averaged 54mpg.
If you’re in the market for a car like a Focus or a Golf, don’t buy anything until you’ve had a decent test drive in the Mazda3. Especially one fitted with the remarkably clever e-skyactiv X engine.