Hi all..new to the forum. Very helpful stuff here.

I just bought my first Mazda (2007 Mazda 3 S Touring). LOVE this car. A few annoying things about it, but I'm told that at this point it's all normal and there have been no fixes/recalls for some things.

Love the power and style of the car. Pretty much love everything about it. Only 2 things causing a little concern:

1. Rear tire alignment. It SEEMS like my rear tires are not aligned properly. They seem to be tilted out at the bottom. Took it to the dealer with this concern, and they told me it's due to the suspension on the car, and it totally normal. Saw a bunch of other Mazda 3's on the lot, and all seemed to have the same thing going on.

2. Knocking sound from the engine. It's very slight and can be heard from inside the car, espeicially when idle. Dealer looked at it, and can't figure it out. Thinks it may be some kind of manufacturing defect and is waiting to hear from Mazda as to whether or not it's a known issue and if a fix will be coming out soon. A noise like that on a new car is usually a little alarming, but I stepped into 2 other same model manual transmission mazda 3's like mine, and they all seem to be doing it.

Anyone else noticed the same things?

 

mazda3's have -1 degree of camber one the rear wheels...
so that isnormal....

as for the other thing, i dunno.....

 

Cool...thanks for the feedback. How will that impact tire wear?

 

nope.... all mazda3's come stock like that...

unless you lower it, then you have to buy rear camber adjusters, and then get an alignment..... yadda yadda yadda.....

anyways, welcome to the forum, and welcome to mazda!!!!

 

Good stuff...thanks a bunch buddy! And thanks for the Welcome. Got a feeling I'm going to be spending PLENTY of time on here.

 

was it a knock or a tick?
does it speed up when you slightly increase the RPM's?

 

It's a knock, my brother calls it a tick..that's why i put it both ways. It does not seem to speed up at all when the rpm's increase. I've gotten to a point where I hardly hear it anymore, just getting used to it, but it's definitely still there.

 

I wouldn't worry about the negative camber in the rear. With regular tire rotation and tires with a wear rating around 300 (that's what I use), I got 42,000 miles out of my last set, would have run them longer if they hadn't have been worn at the beginning of winter....Toyo Proxes FZ4's....Z-rated. I've heard the stock tires wear fairly quick, but who knows how often those people rotated their tires...I move them every 6,000 miles or so.

That negative camber is what helps a stock Mazda3 pull 0.87g.....same as a Nissan 350Z.

 

I'm with you sstlaure...I've always rotated my tires very frequently on every car I've owned...just took it in to check to make sure it wasn't something they missed.

 

the tick, knock, whatever, may be due to low quality gas. you should fill up with something that has high octane and see if it goes away.