Used Mazda Mazda3 for Sale in Virginia Beach, VA

The Mazda 3 follows the Mazda 2 as the "cheap toy car" in the companies line-up, in fact, in certain areas in the country the Mazda 3 completely replaces the Mazda 2. The issues are similar, you have a combination of a cheap basic car with decent built (Toyota) with a nice stylish look with inefficient parts (Kia). The Mazda 3 will look stylish and will boast about features to get you excited. All of this at an affordable price point new, and near dirt cheap used, however you are basically getting nothing more than a car you'd only really buy if you go 2-5 minutes down the street to the grocery store maybe a few times a week. The Mazda 3's internal design is pretty bad and will be the source of likely most problems buyers will face. It's to easy to have multiple parts break in a small collision or in heavy precipitation. It can go fast, but skidding on turns can cause force to knock things into each other, and the engine is unreliable out the box, it is recommended to get some adjustments made or a new modern engine in your Mazda 3 if your going on the highway. By default the engine will take up a lot more gas than it needs to as well. While it's still not too bad compared to other brands for gas guzzling, it is supposed to be one of the most gas conservative vehicles on the market, but the ineffective design choices destroy that prospect. Externally the car looks very nice and modern, but the outside material is very flimsy as if you were driving in plastic. It is definitely not a car for long-term use. Your best bet is to go to a dealer and get replacements for many parts and have some adjustments done to the casings to make it harder for parts to be displaced or get damaged.

First of all, a Mazda 3 was not our first choice. We only considered it because Ford bought Mazda, and the prices were good. After a test drive, and a little haggling, we were on our way. The car itself handles good except on ice. For some reason it likes to play slip-n-slide even though all the weight is on the front end and it's front wheel drive. Keep a close eye on your antenna as well. Ours has been stolen five or six times. Ours came with a 6 CD changer, sun/moon roof. One thing you HAVE to do is change the oil regularly. See, it doesn't have a regular oil filter, but a cartridge that fits into a plastic housing. The next thing to remember is that once something goes wrong, there's a cascade effect. Ours started a short time after a leak in the valve cover gasket popped up. It appeared to be in two places, but you won't see that unless you check under the plastic engine cover - where the coil packs are located. We kept changing the oil, and putting more in as needed - it's not cheap to have the valve cover gasket replaced - mostly because of labor. Until the engine gave up the ghost after 7 years the car ran great. There was no indication the engine was about to die until a few days before the upper and lower camshafts went. Even then it still started with a loud banging. Still we got almost 160,000 miles (at over 1,000 miles per week in the final 6 years) out of it before we had any major problems. We replaced the engine, and it's still running.