A while back, I had a Mazda 3 as a loaner vehicle from the dealer as my MX-5 was in for some repairs. This time, the dealer ran out of Mazda loaner vehicles and I ended up in a rental from Hertz. The rental is a 2007 Toyota Corolla with about 20,000 miles on it. This is about an order of magnitude more miles than the Mazda 3 had on it, but for a Toyota, that's still effectively infancy. However, life as a rental car is a difficult life.



At first sit-down, the Corolla feels very much like the 3. I can tell, immediately, that they're intended for the same basic market segment, just from different makers. Seating position is similar, steering wheel's similar, dash is similar, with just the different Toyota rather than Mazda styling. When I went to shift the car to reverse to back out of the parking spot, I saw my first major difference. The shifter in the Corolla looks like something out of the '87 Camry I used to own. The movement is straight forward and back, and there's a little button to push to allow the lever to move. Typical boring automatic stuff. The shifter in the Mazda is a different shape - it's more round like a typical manual transmission shifter, rather than long and narrow. It doesn't have a button on the side, and instead easily slides through an offset pattern to the different positions. This makes it easy to slip the shifter into manual mode or neutral while driving, and greatly helps with the "sporty" feel of the car. The lack of this smooth, button-less movement, combined with the lack of manual mode, leave the experience less sporty in the Corolla.



That said, the experience when I stomp on the throttle in the Corolla is far superior to that of the 3. The Corolla goes. I'm not sure which engine this Corolla has, but it's definitely a better match of engine and transmission than the 2.0 with the 4 speed in the 3. That said, I've spent some time in a Mazda 6 with the 2.3L engine available in the 3. The 2.3L has a lot more grunt - it would fix my displeasures with the acceleration of the 3. Still, in the cars I actually drove, I have to give this one to the Corolla. It accelerated and the transmission downshifted well when asked to.



However, the good driving experiences in the Corolla end there. The steering provides little feedback, has more play than the 3, and is flat out mushy and soft, even when you make it out of the dead zone. While one could argue this is due to the miles and the difficult life as a rental, this is consistent with Toyota vehicles. The car's sustained sweeper speed is lower than the Mazda 3's (or even the larger 6's). Communication is less, and the ability to correct understeer is significantly more limited. I asked the car to take a sweeper at high speed and discovered massive understeer. When I went to correct, I discovered triggering slight oversteer - just a bit of slip - was very difficult in this car.



As far as which vehicles with which options I've had, I'm guessing, to an extent. I'm also looking at the websites, new vehicles, for pricing, so this is different year models than I actually drove. Still, it'll give an idea.



The Mazda 3 would be $16,645, it seems. This is the lowest model with the only option as air conditioning. No ABS.

The Corolla would be $16,825. This is the lowest model with no options (includes air conditioning). No ABS, rear drum brakes.

Changing the Mazda 3 to the 2.3L with the 5-speed automatic (which come together - can't get one or the other) increases the price to $19,355 (this has no options - air conditioning and ABS are included in this).



I'm left with the feeling that the Corolla is the car for the idiot American who thinks the car should GO if they never step on the gas pedal, but never does step on a gas pedal, and wouldn't know how to turn a corner even after getting instruction from the best drivers around. The 3 is the car for someone who wants to actually play with the vehicle, feel what it's doing, enjoy the drive. Unfortunately, this is the sort of person who'd want the better match of engine and transmission of the 2.3L / 5AT, which pushes the prices further apart. Mazda really needs to correct that mis-match with the lowest end 3. I'm not asking for great acceleration, just not feeling like the car bogs down every time it shifts.



Driving this Corolla around has further impressed on me Mazda's skill at what they do - building cars that are fun to drive, no mater their actual role.