I don't know how Irish people can drive manuals at all when they're drunk on whiskey and full of haggis.
I wouldn't say that autos are useless for a few reasons but CVTs certainly are. As for the mazda powertrain, I wonder how long the engine can last at 14:1 compression keeping in mind that many economy car owners will never do any maintenance on their cars, maybe changing the oil every 10-15k miles.
i completely agree that the transmission sucks REALLY bad..but for what it is, it handles decent, and the auto-stick makes the CVT act a little more bearable.
going onto the highway from a near stop is the worst thing though. gutless in first gear, and sounds like something is dieing down there.
As far as skyactiv; that's what they've been testing more recently now before releasing full is the actual longevity test.
But, Mazda also has essentially 'beta' testers out there right now.
2010 Mazda 3s and all 2010+ mazda car right now has skyactiv parts that have been finalized.
But really they are ready to release it. They wanted to release it on the 2012 Mazda 3, but they couldn't fit the exhaust manifold into the 3's frame.
Either way though, it's some pretty awesome stuff going on.
You're most likely a fat, hairy and bald guy that has to fight off bears and racoons everyday away from his shack and goes to the local internet cafe on a mule so he can post on the LFS forum before the dial-up connection times out.
Nice way to stereotype a Lithuanian. Unfortunately I don't know how I could be bald and hairy at the same time - unless you take off trousers from Lithuanian people (:really
Apart from all the whining and people who only like standard looking cars, wheels look really neat! How many hours went into them? Although they could use a bit more dish (lower ET)
Some manufacturers have made steel wheels with covers like that (with such "open" spokes) that look just like alloys, only you can kerb the shit out of them with impunity.
On a related note, my Mum has managed to dent the inside of one alloy, and chip another (chip as in a chunk missing... was surprised it still holds air)
Can't get much deeper in a Mazda 3; very few people have run 10s, and the offset has to be on point; 9 is just easier, offset on these is somewhere in mid 30 range. I will have to camber them out a touch, but not retardedly.
But even then; these wheels are 20 years old and I believe these were the only two size barrels made for 17" (I could be wrong, but there is such limited information about these wheels to begin with)
Hmm hours? Well they were pretty shit if you say them first time around .. here's a reminder:
Overall time.. I dunno, I didn't really count how long I was working on them.
And besides I wasted a lot of time by attempting to paint them myself; but overall it wasn't to bad, a few mornings here and there. Maybe somewhere in the 20-30 hours range total?