I recently purchased a 07 Madza3. The AC is not quite what I was hoping, so my question for you folks who've owed Madza's for a while is A: Is it normal for Madza's to have "EH" AC's? or B: should I have it serviced? The car has 70K miles on it. I've been driving a 94 Celica for the last 6 years and the AC has always been AWESOME. Any help would be appreciated!

 

The 1st gen 3's AC was never impressive so it could be you're seeing the real AC. It's also possible it could need recharging. My brother just came into a '04 with less than 30k miles and I warned him the AC wasn't great. Had it checked and apparently it was low. Topped off and he now says the AC works well.

Beyond that there are a few things you can do.
-use a sun shade to help reduce the black dash super heating
-open the windows for the first few minutes of your drive to get the super heated air out
-keep the AC on full or partial face for the first 5-10 minutes... remember partial foot diverts air to the back seat... plus full face keeps cold air running through the dash to help cool it down
-do a "resistor mod". Wire a resistor to the AC thermistor. Increased resistance makes it think it's hotter and it works harder to compensate. a 33 ohm resistor equates to about 5 degrees. Wire it with a switch to make it a little safer.

 

Check/clean/replace your cabin filters. After cleaning the filters in my '11, I've noticed a nice improvement.

 

Cabin filters! Just learned about those from my wifes Pathfinder! I doubt my old Celica had that! I'll try out your guys's suggestions and if the filters are clean and rolling down the windows doesn't help i may need to service it. Not a big deal, but I didn't want to JUMP into that 1st. Thanks all!

 

we have a 2013, and the a/c sucks. it has just a tad over 5k on it, and we bought it in january, so no way to tell until spring/summer. windows tinted with the best heat rejection, and it still sucks

 

Well with 70K on my new baby I guess I can afford the 100 bux to check out the AC and HOPEFULLY get a recharge. The AC works.. just not as good as I would have hoped. I'll let everyone know if the recharge helps.