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| Road Test Mazda2 1.3 TS2 Three-Door |
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Three Doors Good, Five Doors Better
At the time, it was available in the UK only as a five-door, but since May 2008 a three-door variant has come along. It matches the five-door range exactly, in that there's a choice of a 1.3 petrol in entry-level TS trim, a more powerful 1.3 TS2, two 1.4 diesels (TS and TS2 trim again but this time with identical power outputs) and a 1.5 Sport. The most noticeable difference is that the three-door costs £500 less, so the 1.3 TS2 tested here is priced at £9609 rather than the £10,109 of its five-door equivalent. Mechanically there are no differences at all, so you get the same top speed, 0-62mph, combined fuel economy and CO2 emission figures (107mph, 12.9 seconds, 52.3mpg and 129g/km) regardless of how many doors there are.
Of the two body styles, the three-door offers slightly less shoulder room for rear passengers, but there's more space back there than a first glance suggests, and it should be possible to carry four robustly healthy adults without much objection from any of them. The problem is getting them all aboard in the first place. The front seats fold forward at the pull of a lever, but they don't move forward as part of the same process, so you have to do that manually in a separate action if there's to be the slightest hope of creating access to the rear. Frankly, this is a bit of a faff, and if you have any ambitions to carry more than two people - rather than simply using the back seat as a place to carry shopping bags - you'd be well advised to spend the extra £500 and buy a five-door instead. In the transition to the new body shape, Mazda's designers have taken the opportunity to make the rear side windows more stylish than before, forgetting that the whole point of windows is that you're meant to be able to see through them. The blind spots are even worse than they are in the five-door, which is saying something, and they make reversing needlessly difficult.
There's no change to the extreme rear of the car, so piling luggage on board is the same process regardless of body style. This is not the 2's strongest suit - load volume is only modest, at 250 litres with the rear seat down or 787 litres when it's folded - and you have to manhandle your goods over a high sill and through a fairly narrow gap. If this all sounds a bit critical . . . well, it's because I'm being critical. I have to say, though, that I enjoyed my time with the test car because it's so good to drive. It's as easy to handle in town as a small hatchback should be, and out in the country it both rides well and can be persuaded to crack through corners at quite a rate without any sense of fuss, if you happen to be in the mood for that sort of thing.
Euro NCAP put the five-door through its crash test programme and established that it was one of the safest superminis on the market, failing to match the Peugeot 207's class-leading score for adult occupant protection simply because one of the rear doors opened during a frontal impact. Since the car tested here doesn't have rear doors I suppose it can be assumed to be as safe as a 207, which is no small claim. Child occupant protection is also good, but Euro NCAP gave the car only two stars out of four for pedestrian protection, so if you see one coming towards you make sure you have an escape route. If safety is a major concern for you, the TS2 is a better bet than the entry-level TS, since it has more airbags. You also get 15" alloy wheels, heated and folding door mirrors, manual air-conditioning, a folding rear seat, more speakers, steering wheel-mounted audio controls, body-coloured exterior trim and a few other bits and pieces for the extra £1510. More power, too (the TS engine produces 11bhp less at its peak than the one in the TS2) and officially the same fuel economy, though the slower car will almost certainly use less petrol in real life. Price: £9609 |
