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I took delivery of my SkyActive Automatic in March. I've put 1k miles on it and can definately agree the power improves with mileage (motor breaking in).

As for the Automatic, I have no shuttering, stuttering or delays. When I hit the gas, unless I leave traction control on, it will roast the tires. When I give a light kick to the pedal and back to the position I intended to throttle to, it kicks down the gear just like every other automatic I've driven. Thusly I can not say I see how this cars transmission is any less responsive or poorer performing than any other out there. If anything, it's a little too agressive at times.

Now, I realize that it may be that they fixed the programming in the models coming off the line in 2012 due to complaints. Or it could be that a few of you have specific cars with a defect or error in programming. I'm leaning toward the latter based on the idea that Mazda cranks out how many of these and there's only a couple owners posting these concerns here.

I will say that the SkyActive system is faster and more responsive than the 2.0 2011 Mazda 3 i-Touring that I traded up from.

Don't flame, these are just my experiences. Hope you find them helpful.

 

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I have had the car a little over a week. I notice there is a hesitation to downshift but once it does it takes off like a bat out of hell, but i don't have a shutter that you are describing.

I have only put 300miles on the car so far but I do notice that there is deff a lurch when removing your foot from the brake peddle and starting to accelerate. I usually wait a split second from the moment I take my foot off the brake to giving it gas and that usually minimizes the lurch.
edit:
if you think the skyactive is lurchy, my god you will down right hate the new ford focus transmission...

 

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Wow! First time I've been accused of working for a company I have reviewed about. No, I don't work for Mazda in any way. I did trade my 2011 for a SkyActive 2012. And yes, my in town increase has been about 5mpg. My reason is the price of fuel. Plus I like the little changes to the front and rear bumpers on the 2012. The cost difference was literally 2k, which will pay itself off on cross country road trips since flights are too spendy too take my family on.

I wrote my article here because there are always a few people out there that have a bad experience and try to warn off the world based on their one experience, such as yourself. Then a superior product gets passed up by people based on that one bad review. That's dung sir! I get your upset, I'm even happy to watch your video and know what to watch out for should my Sky go nuts someday or stop performing so well. I personally think you need to push it back into the dealer till it gets fixed or its been in for the same thing 3x then make them lemon law it. If your that unhappy, do it. But to tell me I must be from corporate or working for the company because I give a fact or two out, and share that this is not the experience of all owners is a bit rediculous. And if I were from corporate that would have been a job killing for PR wouldn't it?

All I want readers to understand is that there is a % of defects in manufacturing. I don't believe anyone at my Mazda dealership would ever tell me "this is normal" and if they did I would tell them to make it drive like a normal car or trade it out. So its not that I can't relate here, I can, and your situation is surely frustrating.

So I am a custom pc builder, I own my own medium size shop in the valley. I order parts to build 200 pcs each month. I have to RA at least 20 parts each month. Not all the same part, but now and then Corsair tosses me a bad batch of RAM. Yet overall, they have a very reliable product. Its a law of averages. Mazda would not be continuing to sell this car with a bad transmission if they were getting even a 1% response from customers that their transmission has problems and their shops were full of skys getting work done already. So my statements were completely sound.

I look forward to your video though. Just make sure your being factual and not slandering or no one will pay attention. Who knows, maybe Mazda will swap in a new trans for you.

Good luck!

 

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Oy vey; usually I'm the one involved in the war of words.

This discussion sure makes me glad I never took the time to learn to drive a car with an automatic transmission; at this point they're going to have to pry the stick shift from my cold dead hand.

 

In the first place, yes Dale, I'm surprised you arer not involved. I saw you were the last to post in this thread and immediately said to myself, "Uh-oh. 'Wonder what he said about automatic transmissions??" LOL

Second and this is said to the OP:
1) Yes, its still true that buying a car in the first year of production (or after major changes like this) can be risky.
2) Did you drive the car before you bought it? Did you take it out on a good long test drive?
3) Keeping rpm's low has always been a way of saving fuel. In manual trans terms, we call this "short-shifting." Did you really think there would be something revolutionery here? This is the age of electronically controlled cars and much can be done to the software to make them more fuel efficient. But as you've found out, they are pretty boring to drive that way.
4) ...And this is what I thought Dale might have said (again, LOL,) you should have gotten the std trans where you had more control over the engine's power. Even a true automatic shifted manually is going to be slow to react to input from the driver.

 

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