I installed a Racing Beat rear sway bar on the car yesterday. Super easy install for these bars and man what a difference it makes. I'm now laughing every time I take a corner at even moderate speed. Brand new install, very happy.

 

nice, do you autocross or anything like that?

 

Clearly you did not try to install the font bar. I'm told even w/a professional shop and a lift it takes 3-4 hrs.
The rear bar, yeah not much to that. 15-20 mins on your back and done.
You may want to rethink that setup before the snow flies however. That heavy rear bar will likely cause your wintertime handling to suck rocks!

Nice bar though. I was thinking of upgrading to it myself.

 

It's just my commuter car. I won't be driving crazy in the snow. Light snow isn't too bad in this car but anything more than that and I don't want to mess with it or the people on the road. On those days I just drive the truck.

No, I didn't get a front bar due to what I read about the install.

 

Sorry but I was not trying to be a smartass... something I'm usually pretty good at. Just noting that if you had done the front bar it would not have seemed so easy.
No offense intended.
Being in Denver, I still think you may find that bar to have a seriously adverse affect on winter driving.
e.g. My very best, all time favorite snow car was a Volvo sedan I once owned. It was in rough shape when I bought it, including worn out shocks and sagging rear springs. Handled the snow like a champ.
After I got done putting a hotter engine in her, lightened the flywheel and "tuning up" the suspension, that included a 2" drop and a 3/4" rear bar that was never there from the factory and an alignment to match the set up, she became quite a handful in bad weather even with good winter tires on her. Sideways became the norm, not the exception.
That's all I was trying to tell you.

 

No offense taken. I don't drive the car too often if it is snowing out. I have a truck and drive it on snow days so I can get around stupid people. Or over if need be.

 

You sounded perhaps a little miffed in your reply post and upon rereading mine, I could see where it might've been misconstrued.
'Glad no offense was taken.

 

I worked with Jim at Racing Beat before my purchase. I asked him about the front bar. (It requires a 30" socket extension.) Here's his reply.

Adding only the rear bar will neutralize much of the understeer that is common with FWD cars. As you've experienced, this is the case with your Mazda 3. However, under hard cornering the rear end may become more active than the front and "oversteer" may be an issue. Correcting oversteer on a FWD car is very difficult, hence the engineering effort to provide a bit of understeer on FWD cars.

We offer our front and rear bars as a matched set to improve handling and neutralize some of the understeer on the Mazda 3. The installation effort is not extreme, but the location of the sway bar on this application does require a bit more work to replace the bar. I've attached a set of the installation instructions for your review. Let me know if you have any further questions.