SP20 VS SP23

[WASP20]

My friend has just bought an SP23 and I drove it a fair bit yesterday and thought I would offer some thoughts as a comparison to my SP20, which I bought new last July.

My first impressions of the SP23 were good. The car has a distinct presence and looks very nice indeed from every angle. The sedan which my friend has is in my opinion the pick of the range. I find the front styling of the hatch a little too similar to the Chrysler PT retro and looks like it belongs more in the 1940s than the early 21st century in my humble opinion! The front of the sedan is softer and far more pleasing to the eye.

Inside, the car is quite different to the model it replaces. The cabin has a fresh and welcoming feel, however the controls are set further apart across the centre of the dashboard and whist looking more modern, does tend to make the panel look unnecessarily large. The guages are very nice indeed, and are only readable with the ignition on. The night lighting of these is problematic in my opinion, being back lit in blue. I had to feeling that the hi beam was always on when driving, and forgot every time to turn it off when a car came in the other direction, because the hi beam light is lost in all the blue surrounds.

Sitting in the back seat on the way home from the dealership, I noticed there is a fair bit more room in the back for passengers. The centre arm rest does not feel as sturdy as that in my car, however the centre rear passengers will be pleased to have a lap sash seat belt at last and passengers will also feel safe given the 6 SRS airbags in the car. When I went to open the back door to get out though, the backing plate for the door handle became unfixed and left a gaping rectangular hole in the door trim where it should have been sat. Upon inspection, the other side seemed well fixed, but I find it pretty unacceptable that these things are not quality checked prior to delivery.

Another negative was the feel of the steering wheel. The plastic feels quite cheap and most unsatisfactory after becoming used to the lovely Nardi wheel on my SP20. Whilst it only seems a small point, it really does let the car down and makes an otherwise classy interior seem cheap. The controls on the wheel for the stereo are a great improvement however and appear to be very user friendly and well thought out.

The doors are higher in the SP23 than the SP20, making it hard for me to get comfortable with the seat in the position it was in. I was not allowed to move the seat higher as my friend has spent half the day ajusting it for himself (!) so I was left sitting a little low, and with nowhere comfortable to put my right elbow! Usually I rest it on the window sill of my SP20, which is at the perfect height for me. Even with the seat raised I doubt I would have found a place to rest my elbow...the door closer seems too low and the sill too high.

Upon driving the car, I was astounded at how much road noise was transmitted to the cabin. The tyres are 50 series the same as the SP20, but are 17 inch not 16. However the tyre noise was incredible. Every surface change produces its own unique rumble and vibration. The brakes too were noisy. I will let that through to the keeper so to speak though, given the car had travelled less than 100km when I drove it, and the brakes were not bed in yet. However the noise from the tyres is plainly unacceptable and irritating. The engine nose from the cabin is bloody horrible too! I am not sure whether this particular car has a small hole already in the muffler or whether there is a poor fit in the system somwhere, but it sounds fluffly and very unsporting.

The car benefits from an extra 19KW of power and 24Nm of torque over my SP20, and feels every bit like a faster and more responsive machine. The acceleration is impressive, albeit I never floored the throttle pedal to really test the acceleration given, again, the car was less than 100km old. However it buzzed up to 60 km far faster than my SP20 does, and was very willing to continue past the local speed limit if I so desired! The engine seems to have a real urge to is from about 1500RPM and is a very good thing.

However the engine performance on its own is not enough to leave me with the overall impression that this is a vast improvement over my car. The handling is very similar, if not identical to my car, as is the firm ride. The brakes seem to have the same level of perfirmance and certainly stop not better or worse than my SP20.

In summary, no I am not going to rush out to upgrade to an SP23. I found all the improvements acheived by Mazda in the SP23 were countered by an equal number of negatives against the new vehicle. For example, the SP23 has variable intermittent wipers (why oh why the SP20 doesn't heaven knows!) and has a trick ambient temperature readout on its easy to read digital display, but it also has no spare alloy wheel, instead having only a skinny temporary use spare wheel which is a bright yellow solid disk and looks like something off my grandfather's wheelbarrow!


I am afraid none of the improvements dazzled me enough to come even close to believing the SP23 is a better car than the SP20. I disapponted my friend last night by saying to him that other than the extra power and torque, my car is a nicer car in every area. He also is disappointed with the car and thinks he will grow to be quite angry with some of the foibles of the SP23.

Come on Mazda...I am sure you can do better.

Check out here for a pic of the two cars together

http://wasp20.00freehost.com/sp20s.html