2023 Mazda MAZDA3 Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The Mazda3 provides rakish headlights framing a large, menacing grille. It’s offered in sedan and hatchback body styles. While the sedan’s proportions are somewhat conventional, the hatchback is much more daring in its design. The Mazda3 hatchback is one of the cleanest and most forward-thinking car designs today, perhaps excluding some electric vehicles. The rear angles curve up around the rear window and rear doors, making for a futuristic design but, as we’ll learn later, this design also has some shortcomings.

The clean futurism continues into the cabin. The simplicity, combined with the organic way the infotainment system rises out of the dash, makes for a styling clinic from which Tesla designers can take a few lessons.

The Mazda3 has a conventional shifter design, which is a welcome choice in the modern car market. No proprietary shifter design here. Despite the clean cabin design, the climate controls are surprisingly conventional and easy to use. The dash features a nice, big pushbutton start. Finally, the steering wheel has an elegant design, if a bit cluttered with controls.

Trim levels include the 2.5 S, Select, Preferred, Carbon Edition, Premium, 2.5 Turbo, and 2.5 Turbo Premium Plus. Standard features on the 2.5 S include 16-inch alloy wheels, pushbutton start, keyless entry, two USB ports, and an 8.8-inch infotainment display that’s operated via a rotary dial and includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Moving up to the Select trim adds 18-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone automatic climate control, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and synthetic leather upholstery.

The Preferred adds a moonroof, heated front seats, a power-adjustable driver’s seat, and power-adjustable side mirrors with integrated turn signals. The Carbon Edition builds on this with unique styling elements. The Premium adds paddle shifters, a head-up display, navigation, and genuine leather upholstery.

The Mazda3 Turbo gains a more powerful engine, but you lose some of the equipment from the Preferred, such as navigation and premium leather. We drove the 2.5 Turbo AWD Premium Plus hatchback, the top trim for 2023. It adds these features back, as well as reverse automatic emergency braking, surround-view parking monitoring, and other driver assistance features.

The base engine in the 2023 Mazda3 is a 2.5-liter naturally aspirated (non-turbo) inline-four. It makes 191 horsepower and 186 pound-feet of torque. It routes power to the front wheels through a six-speed automatic transmission by default, all-wheel drive (AWD) is also available with this powertrain. A manual transmission available with this engine as well, but only on front-wheel drive (FWD) Premium models.

Our test model came with the optional turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine. It makes 227 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque using regular fuel or 250 hp and 320 lb-ft with premium fuel. The automatic transmission and AWD are standard with this engine.

From the moment you start it up, you’re engaged with this vehicle. The turbo engine emits a fantastic sound. It won’t wow a V8 aficionado, but high-performance four-cylinder engines have been around for long enough. There are more than enough enthusiasts that will be pleased with the sound of this vehicle. It’s just the aural amuse bouche for the main course, which is the Mazda3’s driving experience.

That experience starts with incredibly well-weighted steering. There’s just enough force feedback, and it’s just light enough without tilting toward numbness. And the Mazda3 proves a performance car doesn’t have to have a big, chunky steering wheel (looking at you, BMW M).

Even with the added boost of the turbocharged engine, off-the-line acceleration is just moderately quick. The Mazda3 really shines once it gets into second gear. In Sport mode, the transmission will hold the gear longer, allowing the turbocharger to really do its thing. The transmission also cleverly jumps into lower gears on your behalf in this mode. So while there are paddle shifters and a manual tap mode on the shifter, we seldom needed it. The 300-plus lb-ft of torque means that no matter which gear you’re in, there is plenty of grunt on tap so that the transmission isn’t making too many shifts.

Sport mode also makes the steering feedback a bit more forceful and heavier. The brake feel is a big surprise here—it feels like what you would find in a hardcore sports car. There’s not a ton of pedal travel and it requires your right foot to have a good deal of dexterity, lest you stop short by quickly applying too much force.

But the Mazda3’s calling card is its handling, which strikes the perfect blend of precision and refinement. There is fantastic balance through cornering, and it’s wonderfully agile, yet not punishing. It does all this while soaking up bumps in the road with ease.

Want to know how in-tune Mazda is with performance driving? The tap-shift function for our test car’s automatic transmission was forward to downshift and back to upshift. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but it’s the exact setup used with race-car sequential shifters.

The Mazda3 sedan provides 13.1 cubic feet of cargo space, which is small compared to other compact sedans like the Honda Civic, Kia Forte, or Nissan Sentra. The hatchback provides 20.1 cubic feet of cargo space, which is not a ton compared to many new small SUVs, but it’s still usable space.

What’s hardly usable is the rear seating area. There is little to no rear seat legroom when the front seats are set up for taller adults. The sloping roofline cuts into headroom in both the sedan and the hatchback. In practice, these cars are really designed for front-seat use, with back seats to be used in a pinch only.

The front seating area has a decently sized center console compartment, though the lid is a bit frustrating. The lid also slides, and it will only flip up if the lid slides all the way back. Luckily, the Mazda3 provides helpful ergonomics and sizable cupholders.

The Mazda3 comes standard with an 8.8-inch infotainment display that rises organically out of the dash. It is not a touchscreen, but rather is operated via a dial in the center console. This is a major weak spot for the Mazda3. There are a number of ways in which the menu navigation is clumsy, and that’s only made more confusing by the fact that you simply can’t press on the screen to select what you want. The dial scrolling is unintuitive and jumping from radio presets to other radio controls is maddeningly confusing. The learning curve for this system is painfully steep.

The worst part is when you try to use the standard Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. There is a Home button along with the dial controller. Pressing the home button should jump you out of Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, but instead, it takes you to the home screen for those programs.

The Mazda3 comes with two USB ports, HD radio, Bluetooth connectivity, and voice control. Our test model came with upgrades such as navigation, satellite radio, and a 12-speaker Bose premium stereo system. The Bose stereo has great sound and looks just as good with its brushed aluminum speaker covers throughout the cabin.

The Mazda3 comes standard with a whole host of safety features. These include forward automatic emergency braking, automatic cruise control, pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive headlights, lane-departure warning, and rain-sensing windshield wipers. Moving up to the Select trim adds blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert. The Turbo Premium Plus adds features such as traffic-sign recognition, traffic jam assist, and a 360-degree parking camera system.

The traffic-sign recognition feature is helpful and even presents a stop sign in the head-up display. Our test model also featured side mirrors that tilt down when in reverse, which is ideal for avoiding curbs when parallel parking.

The big safety issue with the Mazda3 hatchback is a major element. The C-pillar (the pillar aft of the rear windows) is simply massive, which makes for an equally massive blind spot. This design element is actually dangerous. And not to continue to harp on the infotainment system, but the fact that there is little to no logic to some elements of its layout actually presents a safety issue. There’s no rhyme or reason when cycling through the icons when using Apple CarPlay. This forces you to constantly take your eyes off the road and is an actual distraction and safety issue.

The most efficient version of the Mazda3 is the base 2.5-liter (non-turbo) engine with the six-speed automatic transmission and FWD. It returns fuel economy of 28 mpg city, 37 mpg highway, and 31 mpg combined. Selecting AWD with this engine brings fuel economy to 26 mpg city, 35 mpg highway, and 30 mpg combined. The turbo-four/AWD combination in the sedan returns 23 mpg city, 32 mpg highway, and 27 mpg combined, while EPA ratings for the hatchback version are 23 city, 31 mpg highway, and 26 mpg combined.

Base MSRP for the 2023 Mazda3 is $22,550 for the sedan and $23,550 for the hatchback. The Select trim level starts at $23,950, the Preferred starts at $25,550, and the Premium starts at $29,400. The hatchback-only Turbo 2.5 starts at $32,450. A 2.5 Turbo Premium Plus sedan starts at $34,000 and a 2.5 Turbo Premium Plus Hatchback starts at $35,350. Our test model clocked in at $38,850.

The Mazda3 is a car of highs and lows. The infotainment interface is among the most frustrating on the market today, and the hatchback design creates some seriously unsafe blind spots, but this car is great to drive. In a digital world, it’s impressive that Mazda has been able to dial in such a communicative driving experience. Many modern performance cars think they have to punish the driver with a brutal ride and extra-heavy steering. But the Mazda3 shows you can have a rewarding driving experience that is also refined and comfortable for the daily commute.

The Mazda3 makes you ask yourself how much you care about that driving experience. Is it enough to overlook the poorly implemented technology? If you’re on the fence, the Mazda3’s impressive luxury could push you over into falling in love with this refined and engaging premium compact car.