Very nice, congrats!

 

Very nice to see someone able to get their hands on one of the top of the range models with all that lane departure warning, radar cruise control and a swag of other safety tech.

 

Thanks,

Don't think it has Radar Cruise, but yes has a lot of nice features.

Went with Akari so i could get the sunroof and real leather, the rest was just a bonus.

Just took it for a drive at night and i like the dash illumination, very subtle. Our last Mazda 6 was all orange !!!!

 

Looking great and I'm not at all jealous of your garage lol

I have the pedal set sitting on a shelf, going to install it tomorrow. Nice to see the finished product.

Congrats on the purchase and welcome!

 

Thanks for the welcome guys.

Unfortunately CX3 won't be in tha garage too much as our other cars take up all the space.

May have to sell one to make room.

 

Congrats on the CX-3. Where did you buy the pedal set? Are they original mazda parts?

 

Got them on eBay from an Australian seller "SouthCoastOnlineParts" for $A197.00.

Original Mazda kit with instructions in multiple languages etc.

Took about 20 minutes to fit it, drill a couple of holes in gas pedal for well nuts, and poke through carpet and fit backing late for the foot rest, brake one just slides over pedal when rubber one is removed.

 

A really nice raft of photo’s too Craigh.

 

Beautiful! Congrats!

 

Love the pedal kit and that garage!

Is that a Holden Monaro (America's rebranded Pontiac GTO) that I see in the garage?

 

Thanks, Yes it is a Holden Monaro CV8-Z, last run before they stopped making the coupe.

On a right hand drive fitting the pedal kit is very easy and fairly quick.

Makes a big difference in looks in my opinion.

 

Congrats on the new car! very nice! let us know how the paddle shift kit goes?

 

CX3 kit from Japan is on eBay and I will imagine it will go something like this....

Paddle Shift Install - 2016 CX-5

This article uses some CX3 parts for 2016 CX5

 

That's an excellent tutorial. We'll pin a link to that when we get organised.

 

Welcome to the club. Nice garage, especially that drool worthy Monaro. I would do that pedal setup, but only if I could find it more of a plastic look, not much of a fan of the metal.

 

Question: The pedal kit looks great. What is missing is some kind of durable surface for the left foot (either metal or hard, nonslip plastic). Resting one's foot firmly on the spot designated by Mazda for an idle left foot is rather hilarious to say the least.

 

The foot rest feels ok but when you take the carpet up to fit the metal plate you realise it's not the most structural.

Behind the carpet is just a foam block molded to the side of the tunnel.

I assume the use of foam like that just means a common unibody can be used left and right hand drive and is probably the same with so many cars.

The footrest only moves a little when you put a fair bit of force on it.

I will check again today but I found it was in a comfortable spot when I drove yesterday.

All cars are built to a cost and from what I understand the viability and cost models comes down to % of a cent on any component so when we look at a difference in models and think that would only cost Mazda few cents to add something, that may be the difference between making profit and not, and without profit they can't design new models.

 

Welcome to the club.. Love the pedals, I'll need to update mine

 

I ordered the insulation mat for under the hood from my local Mazda dealer in Australia.

A bit more expensive than in the US or Canada A$147 at trade price.

They wanted A$9.50 for each fastener so i did not take them up on that. I will get them elsewhere.

 

I ordered the insulation mat for under the hood from my local Mazda dealer in Australia.

A bit more expensive than in the US or Canada A$147 at trade price.

They wanted A$9.50 for each fastener so i did not take them up on that. I will get them elsewhere.

Please let us know your "before and after" assessment of the insulation mat after you have fitted it.

 

Thanks Craigh for the series of posts. Very interesting information some of which I will use to improve my CX. Not sure if I am game enough to do the shift paddles but will keep thinking about it.

 

Did some experimentation with using USB flash drives for music.

Got a SanDisk 64GB Ultra Fit CZ43 USB 3.0 130MB/s Flash Drive to experiment with from eBay for A$25

Have been through this with our Audi S3 so thought I would just copy the content from it and the playlists and it would all work.

Well.....no :-(

So after a bit of research on the Mazda 3, 6 and CX5 forums it looks like its very similar except the playlists need to be in "m3uext" format to work properly.

So the structure i ended up with that works well is playlists in the root of the USB drive in m3uext format and and then a Music directory with all my music in Artist/Album structure. This is the same structure used by iTunes.

USB drive needs to be FAT32 format and can be USB 3.0 (I think the info about only USB 2.0 relates to doing a firmware update not music playback)

To get it all copied easily and to rebuild the playlists into the correct format etc
I use

Playlist Exporter - Written by Eric Daugherty.

Website: Eric Daugherty - Playlist Export

This tool allows you to choose playlists etc from your iTunes library then copies then to the USB stick in the correct formats, then builds compatible playlists.

I then use "CleanMyDrive2" to delete all Mac hidden system files created by the copy process etc - This is not needed if you don't use a Mac.

So insert the USB stick and select it from the media player and it will start playing.

DONT expect the playlists, access via Artist, Album, Genre etc to be available for a while as it seems to take the unit a while to get all that read and into memory. Can be a number of minutes. (and it does not store it so its the same next time)

I have tried a drive with 40+ G of music and multiple playlists as well as just ones with a single playlist of around 8g of music.

Both take a while to load so the the unit is no speed demon.

Browsing the media via the menu can also be a bit slow.

Best option is to use a playlist and once your in it choose random etc and then it will recall where you were up to between drives etc. (even though it is rebuilding the structure of the music behind the scenes)

 

Was not 100% happy with the paint after using the Autoglym Super Resin Polish
& Ultra Gloss Protection.

Was not bad at all but the Soul Red amplifies any minor imperfections in the paint. You only see most of the issues under very strong sunlight or floodlights.

So I had some time and went over the hood and a few other areas with some Menzurna polishes to correct the paint, removing the minor swirls, scratches etc and then finished off with....

Mothers California Gold® Micro-Polishing Glaze
...followed by

Mothers Synthetic Wax

Hard to get a shot without a reflection from clouds, house etc...

Now in direct sun at obscure angles almost no imperfections.....probably lots of effort for a small gain ....but I am a bit anal about seeing marks in the paint.

 

Beautiful.

 

Have been finding the legal disclaimer timeout when the CX3 starts a bit annoying so i looked into what tweaks were available to change it.

Starting here......

http://mazda3revolution.com/forums/2014-2016-mazda-3-skyactiv-audio-electronics/104730-index-infotainment-project.html

I read up about the tweaks packages.

I downloaded the latest tweak package and edited the script to remove all tweaks except the one that reduced the timeout to less than a second.

# reduce disclaimer time
chmod 755 /jci/gui/apps/system/js/systemApp.js sed -i 's/this._disclaimerTime.remaining = 3500/this._disclaimerTime.remaining = 100/g' /jci/gui/apps/system/js/systemApp.js

Copied all the files to a USB stick, removed all USB devices from CX3 and plugged in the stick with tweak files and started the car. After 20 or so seconds i get a dialogue saying its all done and now the disclaimer passes almost as soon as it pops up.

Great mod and easy to do.

 

Methinks you've been approved Craig!!!

 

No I worked a way around it

Start with a simple post with no links or code then edit it again to add the potential spam items

 

After experimenting with USB flash drives etc etc I ended up with using an old 32g iPhone as my music source so wanted to keep it in glove box out of the way.

So after removing the console top, shifter cover your able to remove the plate and rubber cover that sits under the USB ports.

I used a round file a notch it to allow the cable to pass through at the back

I have ordered a short black 90 degree usb extension so its less noticeable but till it arrives I am using the apple cable.

Run the cable up under console towards the glove box.

Remove glovebox and mark it spot to run cable through.

Drill 11mm hole for grommet.

Fit glove box back in.

Refit trim and run cable in notch created earlier.

 

After experimenting with USB flash drives etc etc I ended up with using an old 32g iPhone as my music source so wanted to keep it in glove box out of the way.

So after removing the console top, shifter cover your able to remove the plate and rubber cover that sits under the USB ports.

I used a round file a notch it to allow the cable to pass through at the back

Excellent post!

I bought my CX-3 at the end of September, and the very first thing I began thinking about was how to route an iPod cable to the glovebox. The plan I came up with is EXACTLY what you have described, so I was thrilled to stumble across your post.

I haven't done the mod yet as I haven't been able to find out how to remove the plate (the one that you notched to pass the USB cable through (I believe Mazda calls this the "Front Console Box"?). I don't want to start prying away at things without knowing for certain how they are attached, so I've been looking online for a PDF of the service manual that would hopefully show how it comes apart. I have yet to find one, so if you have any advice on how these console pieces come off, or if you happen to know of a link to a service manual it would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers...

 

Hood insulator fitted last week,

I think there was a noticeable lowering of the engine thrash at higher revs, as noise possibly transferred through hood as resonance.

 

Shift Paddles shipped from Japan today.

JDMAuto

[NEW] JDM Mazda CX-3 DK Steering Shift Switch Genuine OEM - MAZDA - Car Parts

Have check out the CX2 Wiring diagrams and they use identical pin assignments into the clock spring as CX5 and 6 so given CX3 uses a lot of CX2 dash etc it should be a workable project for the new year

 

Excellent mods and photos Craig.

I will get all the "show and tell" photo tutorials pinned soon. Your glove box iPod install worked out great.

It would be nice to have a bespoke CX-3 paddle shift tutorial too ;-)

 

90 degree USB adapter turned up today so I finished off the USB extension to the glove box.

Now looks neater and black cable does not stand out as much.

 

90 degree USB adapter turned up today so I finished off the USB extension to the glove box.

Now looks neater and black cable does not stand out as much.

Finally found the time to fit this USB extension cable mod today, looks the business, thanks for all the info Craig, I think that you need to get the thread name changed to "the really useful thread"

 

It looks part of the car Craig.