Mazda 3 Reliability

My little Mazda 3 is brilliant! It's only a 1.4 but it's a quirky little thing! It revs to about 7000rmp at the redline, and the 84bhp that it has really starts to work from around 3500rpm. The ride in this baby is fantastic, absorbing the imperfections in the road with a reassuring firmness, but at no time does this spoil the ride. Around corners it feels solid and planted, understeer only kicking in if you work it hard into bends, but the chassis makes it pretty simple to deal with. The gearbox is a joy too, with quite a short throw, which always goads me into changing gear probably more often than I need to - my wife possibly not always in favour of this!
It's a wonderfully comfy car, and as of yet I've had no back pain or dicomfort, even on longer drives. The interior in my opinion is class leading. For the equivalent level of sportyness and build quality in the likes of an Astra or Golf, you would need to pay around £1500 more. The plastics are solid, and the layout is easy to use and very practical!
The only beef I have with the 3 (who I have named Steve by the way - for many reasons) is the fuel consumption. The brochures and anything you can find on the web will tell you that this car should average roughly 42mpg, and at best I have managed a measly 25/26mpg, and I had to REALLY try to get that result - a month of "sunday driver" type stuff. I just need to get a diagnostics test done and hopefully get this sorted out. Also, the doors don't lock automatically when you switch the engine on, which I would have liked....and a tad more oomph wouldn't go astray.
Other than that, I love ol' Steve. He's been reliable, he's good looking and he's great fun to drive.