Ownership Verified: The car nobody's been waiting for.

mooglebunny

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2010
Messages
1,294
Location
CA
Car(s)
2013 Mazda3i Touring SkyActiv
I've been meaning to get to this for a while. Here are some of the pictures of the vehicle that I drive daily(ish).



Broken side-view mirror (broken a few years ago), this is my temporary solution until I epoxy it.


You can kind of see how dirty it is, it hasn't been properly cleaned in years. I need to do that. @_@




See that bar on the side? Those are the most annoying feature of the trunk. It really reduces the amount of stuff you can put in the small trunk. =(




The good side.


Me and the car I guess.


I hope someone at least got enjoyment out of the car. I was too lazy to post more, but the engine bay is kinda meh, along with the rest of the car.

10/13/10 Here are a couple of pictures I took a couple of months ago showing how rusty this poor car's undercarriage is after many snowy winters and no car wash afterward when it was away from California (not in my possession).



 
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Well judging by the picture you are young and this is your first car. You will probably destroy it so it is good that it sucks :)
 
Aerial (Antennae) - it's on the wrong side ?. LOL. (Cobol74 you fool they drive on that side - D'oh!)

Yes do not fix the mirror until you sell it - it'll only get broken again.

In the pic you look kind of strangely proud. ...
 
My aunt defeated me to that I think. All of the things on it happened when it was owned by her. It wasn't a good car to begin with though. I think it was bought new for under $10k.

Sooooooo.

Nah, that's just the face I normally have. Odd I know.

Also, it's not going to be sold. I'm driving it until someone runs into it and kills it or the engine kills itself.

Also, I am over the age of 21. I'm not SUPER young, like 16 or 18 or something.

I look like I'm a freshman in high school though, I will admit that. (Or middle school, I dunno.)
 
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Well judging by the picture you are young and this is your first car. You will probably destroy it so it is good that it sucks :)
Hey, hey! I didn't destroy my first car!

oh wait, I drove it sideways through fields at 40mph, never mind
 
Well, the weird thing is, is that I usually end up being the one who drives places because my boyfriend prefers my driving, even his own Forester. (Highly defensive driver, I've avoided quite a few near-accidents and cut-offs, always scanning the road and mirrors, etc) My Grandma also prefers me to drive too when we go places, and even my aunt. @_@

Also, I wanted to mention that the car does not have Power Steering. It has Power Assisted Steering. *D'oh* And it may or may not have ABS. I'm not 100% sure. The front wheels are majorly scuffed up unlike the rear which seem very pristine comparatively.
 
My aunt defeated me to that I think. All of the things on it happened when it was owned by her. It wasn't a good car to begin with though. I think it was bought new for under $10k.

Sooooooo.

Nah, that's just the face I normally have. Odd I know.

Also, it's not going to be sold. I'm driving it until someone runs into it and kills it or the engine kills itself.

Also, I am over the age of 21. I'm not SUPER young, like 16 or 18 or something.

I look like I'm a freshman in high school though, I will admit that. (Or middle school, I dunno.)


Well then start making it kill itself :D
Hey, hey! I didn't destroy my first car!

oh wait, I drove it sideways through fields at 40mph, never mind

Most of the damage to my car was done not by me and when the car was not even moving or even me in it :blink:
I'd say most issues can be blamed on a trans am hitting me while stopped at a light, the major cosmetic damage (the hood) is from what I assume was a very large truck backing into it in a parking lot. Whole thing is warped now.
I do however drive it like um... everyone else in this state and am stereotypically bad at parking so the scratches on the stupid swollen arches and the bumpers are TOTALLY my fault. Also you can put it in park when moving. I figured this out at 16, the transmission made an unhappy noise :lol:
 
You're not SUPPOSED to be able to put it into Park when it is in Drive. XD

Yeah I dunno, I mean, the car has 2005xx or so miles now, so it's not exactly a happy car. It SOUNDS loud and fast, but it's actually quite painfully slow. As soon as the light turns green and nobody's in the intersection I usually go because I have to get a jump start to get to the speed limit.

I don't do anything rascally, I take turns at a reasonable speed, mostly. Otherwise the car understeers.
 
And it may or may not have ABS. I'm not 100% sure.
This is easy to test. Go to an empty road (no one behind you being most important). Get up to at least 30mph. Mash your brake pedal to the floor. If you get smoke from tires and wheels lock up, you don't have ABS. If you get a weird vibration in the pedal and wheels don't lock up, you do have ABS. *

*Note: My car has ABS. Properly functioning system, too. Yet occasionally, when I do this, the wheels will still lock up. This is because my car has a very, very relaxed ABS tune. If in doubt, slightly less brake pedal pressure than "to the floor" will get ABS to trigger (it's less sudden). However, you'd still need to brake harder than you likely ever have before. Most people use less than half of their car's available braking, even enthusiasts. I've had to re-teach a lot of people how to brake when they come to the track. :D

My first car was just a heap. My second car had significant body damage, most of it occurring before I had my learners permit. My third car was in great shape, but was still a not-fun car. My fourth car was my first fun, not ugly car. :)
 
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Hmm, I might have to try that at some point, but I haven't had the breaks lock on me... yet. Though I had a close call yesterday when I had to make a sharp break at a light.

I may also be afraid to do that because apparently the breaks in this car model actually uhm... Just fail. Literally. People have gotten into accidents because their Mirage pedal went to the floor and didn't stop at all in America. I usually have to break quite far back compared to other people since I don't actually think the breaks are adequate. And they squeak because they just do. Even if we get the brakes fixed up, they squeak right out of the mechanic.

Also, this car has the Check Engine light on all the time. It's apparently the catalytic converter, but I still get about 25mpg. (Which is about the same as an average Forester or Impreza. My boyfriend's '01 Forester gets about the same MPG.)
 
Actually, that's all the more reason to try this. Just do it on a straight road with nothing around. Especially if your brakes could fail, you need to understand their limits and how the pedal should feel. If the brakes do ever feel softer than usual, pump them. Try (I know it's hard, but try) to develop that reaction now. One of our racecars did that as I was braking for a hairpin. Had to pump the brakes excessively to get them to slow the vehicle, but I did manage to avoid going off track. :)

My car has a cat related check engine light, too. Like yours, my fuel mileage is fine, performance is fine (no power loss), so... Meh. I'll get it fixed one of these days. ;)
 
My relatives tried getting it fixed... 8 times. Nobody could do anything without replacing the whole Converter, which is more than the car's worth and the fact that it's registered in a rural county means I don't have to worry about it really. (It's also why nobody can sell the car, it won't pass any of the tests for smog.)

Yeah I might, I mean, I usually stop quite fine though, not enough to annoy people with better cars (Which is everyone) but not to the point where I think I'm going to run into anything. I've never had issues where I thought the car was out of control either, even if I take a turn a little too fast and try to break to slow the car down. (But that's how I know it understeers too.)

It's just kind of hard to find something that would be adequate and dead around here, the local parking lots are really small (and nonexistent mostly, they try to meter everything as much as possible).
 
You're not SUPPOSED to be able to put it into Park when it is in Drive. XD

Yeah I dunno, I mean, the car has 2005xx or so miles now, so it's not exactly a happy car. It SOUNDS loud and fast, but it's actually quite painfully slow. As soon as the light turns green and nobody's in the intersection I usually go because I have to get a jump start to get to the speed limit.

I don't do anything rascally, I take turns at a reasonable speed, mostly. Otherwise the car understeers.

I think it is just an "oops" of having shitty transmission. It's tiptronic which means you are able to change to manual mode while moving so I guess they couldn't do that without being able to shift into park too.

We can have a slowness race. :D
 
Oh yeah... That would probably be why. I just have a bad transmission in general, but it was never able to be forced by a heavy 70 pound dog into park. She pushed it into neutral a few times though while on the freeway.

Maybe. Car's about 23xx pounds (24xx with me in it), 113 HP (without the Air Con on), and about 120 lb/ft of torque.

I don't think it gets quite near that, but it's pretty close.
 
The brakes on the Failtima kinda sucked, but that didn't keep me from finding out the hard way that it doesn't have ABS whee! :D

Add giant wing; pretend it's an Evo?

Pls. advise.

{ runs away }
 
Actually, that's all the more reason to try this. Just do it on a straight road with nothing around. Especially if your brakes could fail, you need to understand their limits and how the pedal should feel. If the brakes do ever feel softer than usual, pump them. Try (I know it's hard, but try) to develop that reaction now. One of our racecars did that as I was braking for a hairpin. Had to pump the brakes excessively to get them to slow the vehicle, but I did manage to avoid going off track. :)

My car has a cat related check engine light, too. Like yours, my fuel mileage is fine, performance is fine (no power loss), so... Meh. I'll get it fixed one of these days. ;)

Same thing happened to my car, luckily was still barely under warranty. Also similar experience with ABS. I know it's there, especially in the winter I feel it all the time. But on two separate occasions I've locked the wheels braking. One of them, I also swerved, and judging by the fact that the car went where I told it to go, it was doing its job behind the scenes :dunno:

On the Mirage (since this is it's thread and all), no embarrassment starting with a shitty car, my first was a '96 Sebring with roll up windows and manual locks :lol:
 
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Oh yeah... That would probably be why. I just have a bad transmission in general, but it was never able to be forced by a heavy 70 pound dog into park. She pushed it into neutral a few times though while on the freeway.

Maybe. Car's about 23xx pounds (24xx with me in it), 113 HP (without the Air Con on), and about 120 lb/ft of torque.

I don't think it gets quite near that, but it's pretty close.
My car is 3000 + with 115. 0-60 in 12 seconds :cry:

Also the idea that mazdas decide they don't feel like ABS is rather frightening to me. I enjoy my very good working brakes D:
 
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Ah yeah I would have a bit of a jump on you probably. I think I can get to 60... Maybe, in about 10 seconds or so. (The transmission has a weird quirk and has had a weird quirk since it was new, which is it kind of slips or delays from 1st to 2nd. It otherwise still kind of works alright though, but sometimes it fails to upshift. Also, the engine hesitates sometimes too when you start from a dead stop.)

Well, fortunately for me, honestly, everything works fine on the car. All the windows still roll up and down, power, that mirror that's taped up even still works (The wire's still intact).

The tinting's kind of annoying though, it's starting to bubble up a bit now that it's like 8 years old.

@Coco- Uhm, but then it would be kind of carbage. I already had a tirade the other day about how people have ridiculous wings on cars that don't actually need them. I'd argue that most normal Evo/Impreza drivers don't even need them driving around town and whatnot.

And they are generally kind of ugly to look at. Look at most BMW/Mercedes, they don't have wings and most are performance-type cars. Just saying.
 
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I keed, I keed! :p
 
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