I've seen any number of Mazda3s that have a body colored frame above the grill that supports the Mazda emblem, and a few that have a rather tacky looking chrome frame that supportsthe emblem. Is there any rhyme or reason as to which model of the 3 gets which emblem frame?

 

My assumption that it is either a Sport/Touring or an i/s deal. I am not sure but I believe the Sport package come w/ the painted grill and the Touring w/ the chrome.Model year may also be a factor.

 

I have a sport and have chrome trim

 

My 2008 M3s has the painted grill.

 

The Sport Grill is in a HB

 

Well it's just on the 3i models as the 3s has the "cheese grater" style grill (more so on the older ones). The original 3i (I believe '04-06) had a plain black plastic above the grill. I believe when they changed the exterior of the 3i (when it went to clear tails) around '07 they switched it to the chrome accent above the emblem. I'm not sure when they started doing the painted ones, and I'm not really sure what models have it and which don't.

 

Thanks for all of the feedback folks.

FWIW, I have a 2009 Mazda3 i Touring and it has a painted/body color slat (i.e. the frame holding the emblem) above the honeycomb style plastic grill. I think it looks pretty good. [8D]

Hmmm, maybe we should start some sort of a poll to log which year/model has what style of grill. Then again, maybe not, I mean, does anybody really care?

 

i had the chrome...it looked horrible. I took the strip off and emblem off and painted both matt black with a matt clear coat. The emblem turned out great but i am not too sure about the chrome strip. The car looks so much better though.

 

I have the painted grill and I like the styling of it a lot better...Just my 2 cents!

 

Hmmm, well, I am thinking that most folks seem to prefer the painted grill.

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