Mazda 3 (BP) review: the compact sedan for someone who still enjoys driving
3.8/5MotorsSouq Editorial Team
Buy the 2.5-litre grade if the budget allows it; the extra power and torque make it noticeably more relaxed on the causeway and at highway speed, and the price difference used is smaller than it was new. The Mazda3's real weakness in Bahrain is not the car — it is rear headroom for tall adults and a back seat that a Corolla beats on outright space. If neither matters to you, it is the best-driving car in its class and price bracket.
Pros
- Heaviest, most feedback-rich steering in the compact-sedan class
- 2.5-litre engine and conventional 6-speed automatic feel unstressed at highway speed
- Cabin materials and fit noticeably above the class norm
- Shared Skyactiv-G engine family gives good parts and workshop familiarity
Cons
- Rear headroom and door aperture trail a Corolla or Civic
- Ride is firmer than most rivals over rough sections of Manama's roads
- Pre-2022 infotainment can feel laggy
- No turbo or all-wheel-drive grade has ever been offered in Bahrain
The Mazda3 has never been the sales leader in the Gulf's compact-sedan class, and it has never tried to be. Where a Corolla or Elantra chases rear legroom and a low sticker price, the BP-generation Mazda3 chases the way it feels to drive — heavier steering than the class norm, a chassis that stays composed through a roundabout, and a cabin that borrows more from Mazda's premium ambitions than its price tag suggests.
On the road in Bahrain
The 2.5-litre engine is the one to have. It is not fast in absolute terms, but the extra 40 hp and 65 Nm over the base 2.0-litre matter at 120 km/h on the Sheikh Khalifa highway, where the smaller engine has to work audibly harder. The six-speed automatic is a conventional torque converter rather than a CVT, and it holds gears through a bend instead of hunting — a small thing that a lot of rivals in this class get wrong.
Around town the trade-off shows up as a firmer ride than a Camry or Sonata over Manama's rougher patch repairs, and a narrower rear door aperture that makes fitting a rear-facing child seat more of a chore than it should be. Neither is a dealbreaker; both are the price of the chassis tuning that makes the car worth recommending in the first place.
Running costs and what to watch for
Skyactiv-G engines have a clean reliability record in this market, and the 2.5-litre is shared with the CX-5 and Mazda6, so parts and diagnostic familiarity at independent workshops are good. The one recurring complaint from Bahrain owners is infotainment lag on pre-2022 cars — a software issue Mazda has mostly resolved on later production, not a hardware one.
Resale is a step behind Toyota and Honda, which works in a buyer's favour on the used market: a well-kept 2.5-litre Mazda3 with full service history is consistently available for less than the equivalent Civic. That gap is the car's best argument to a value-conscious Bahraini buyer who still wants to enjoy the drive.