Hi there,

This might sound weird, I drove a 2005 Mazda 3 Sedan 1.6 Dynamic (South Africa what do you expect ) and i wrote it off on a grave road doing 60 kph (the car started steering to the right, i counter steered and it started coming straight again but before if was totally straight and i could return my steering position to normal the car started to turn to the right again, at this point i had my front wheels at total opposite lock and ya i would have only ended up next to the road but thanks to our lovely roadworks there was an erosion ditch right next to the road that caught the left front wheel and flipped me over, rolling me over sideways until i finally stopped on the drivers side)

Since the car wasn't even a year old and had less than 30 000km on the clock my insurance replaced it with the 2006 1.6 Dynamic sedan.

Such a long story to get to the point :-)

In both my 3's that i have had, when my fuel tank is nearly empty (under quarter tank) i get the sensation that the independent rear suspension is unable to handle the car when there is no weight on them. When i go around a corner with a bit of speed, if would feel as if the rear is just unstable, ant this is even before the front would even start to understear.

Has any body else experienced this?

I heard that Mazda has installed additional dampening on the 3's rear suspension to prevent the "pendulum" effect.

tnx.

 

Sorry to hear about your old car, but glad to see it kept you safe enough to be posting here still!

I know in my car (different independent rear suspension design) the rear feels much stiffer when it isn't loaded down with fuel and/or passengers.

my car oversteers at the limit though, even when it is pretty loaded down (long story).

I would imagine if there was more weight in the rear, thus increasing grip a little, it might cause the car to understeer even more. By 'unstable' do you mean that it felt as though it might begin to oversteer?

 

I like your radioactive steering wheel! =P

You could throw some ballast in the trunk--seems like that would solve your problem. Or, if you're interested in improving handling (at the expense of some comfort), you could go with an aftermarket spring/strut combination.

 

I am currently driving with a set of 50kg dumbells in my boot, and it is proving usefull.
I'm going to do a full suspension upgrade early next year.

My car does have tendency's to understeer, rather than oversteer, but since its only a 1.6, you actually have to throw it into a corner to experience it.

By 'unstable' i mean that it feals as if the suspension doesn't know how to handle the turn. You can clearly feel that the wheels has traction, but the body feels as if its sliding, almost like the its two parts just resting on each other, its actually freeking hard to describe the feeling But when the car is loaded, this feeling is gone.

 

the 3 is pretty neutral actually..sounds to me like you are getting unwated oversteer ?? ..it has more to do with lack of body roll, rather than load on the rear wheels...mazda tends to have pretty stiff suspension, even stock...making the rear end stiffer is not going to induce less oversteer, though, but more...stiffining up the front end though, would tend to induce more understeer, and probably help eliminate your problem...a stiffer front swaybar, or stiffer front springs might help...or you could get adjustable struts, amd increase dampening on the front a bit more than the rear, if you dont want mismatching springs...