I'm a new 3s 5-door owner, manual tranny. So far I love the car, though I think it was a little arrogent of Mazda to put a governor on it to limit the top speed.

My only other complaint about the 3 is that with my car, there's a nearly 2 second delay when you take your foot off the gas before the car actually starts to slow. I'm a big user of compression braking in the twisties to get immediate slowing going into a turn. I find this problem very annoying and bordering on dangerous. How can you drive a car fast if your transmission responds like it's an automatic and lets you coast for 2 seconds before getting any compression braking?

Yes, I'm a duffus, I didn't pick up on the problem on the test drive. I was paying attention to too many other things, plus we were in the city. And you can't exactly thrash the car with the salesman sitting next to you, and it's only when you're pushing hard into a turn that the delayed compression braking makes itself REALLY noticable ... "Hey, my foot's off the gas, why aren't we slowing DOWN?????"

I suspect it's something to do with getting better gas mileage. Maybe the EFI chip is mapped to avoid the gas sapping habits of people who can't keep a steady foot on the accelerator when on the freeway.

I'd like to know if it's just MY car, or if others have found this too?

If anyone else finds the same problem, have they brought it up with the dealer to see if the dealer can adjust this in any way?

Does anyone make a different chip that can be installed? Like the Power Commander chips made for motorcycles.

Thanks in advance.

 

I don't really have this problem with my car, so I can't help you much. I suppose you could always downshift when you're going into a corner and that would start engine braking for you..... or you could take your foot off the gas a few seconds earlier since you know it's not going to slow down right away.

Like I mentioned in the other thread, there aren't any chips avaiable for the 3 yet.