So yeah i am new to the whole forum site but i thought it would be a good place to get some info. so i bought an 07 Mazda 3 about 8 months ago and it is an automatic and i was thinking about making it a manual. would this be too much time and money to be worth my while or should i go for it? i was also hoping to see if anyone new how much that would be too. i wanna start putting stuff into my car but i think it would be better if i had a manual. if anyone could help that would be cool. thanks.

 

sell your car and buy a MS3....MUCH cheaper and faster.

 

^ what he said!

 

^^ +2

 

+3

 

do i hear a 4?

 

theres a black mazdaspeed3 thats been at my local dealership for a good 2-3 months now..
i should go in and offera trade for my 3 sedan :P

altho i have been thinking about getting a OEM speed3 body kit and making it fit my sedan. only cuz no one has ever done that.

 

the only time switching out a tranny like that is worth while is if there arent any manual versions around, or they are very rare... in the case of the mazda 3 manual... they are every where... so its not worth it.

 

I had the hardest time getting an M3 GT manual. Same is true for the Civic and the Accord. Over 85% of the production are automatics. Since dealers get shipments according to what they sell, it is clear that the majority of US buyers prefer the auto-tranny. I suspect it has lead our Japanese friends to consider that the American driver is either very lazy or poorly trained (not that they are too far off the mark here)...

I am puzzled though at why would you want to physically "change" the transmission. You can just as well operate the M3 automatic in the "manu-matic" mode, just the same as a manual. You have a slightly different set of gearing ratios, and you do not even have to use a clutch. One might call this tranny the best of both worlds...

 

FAIL! This is SO wrong on several levels. You will never shift it at the proper point or faster than the stock valvebody would. Please don't buy into this style of thinking. It's false.

 

those auto-stick things are crap.... they shift about 2 seconds after you tell it to, and they sometimes even make decisions for you... they are junk, dont buy into that horrible attempt to make an automatic transmission seem just as sporty as a manual