You have not said the age of the Mazda or Golf. But making a couple of assumptions, that being the Golf was a 7th gen and the 3 is either current or previous shape, the difference in weight is not actually that big going by the figures I can find (though It may be the case that more of the Golfs weight is on the nose). So I'd be inclined to suspect the Bridgestone tyres are the problem. And don't assume because it is a well known brand, they deal with standing water as well as any other respected brand.

Also, what size are the tyres?. Wider tyres will be more likely to aquaplane.

For advice, I'd say maybe a Mazda forum might be a better bet. The only forum member on here I can think of with a 3 is Engineer Andy and his is an old one, so any experience with tyres is not likely to be relevant.

I have a Mazda6 with a set of 19" Bridgestone Weather Control A005 all season tyres fitted. These have performed very well in the rain and wet (something we get a lot of here in NI) and also in the odd skiff of snow too. Only real draw back is that they haven't worn well, I reckon I've got a little over 20,000 miles out of the set (rotated every 5000 miles) and the majority of this was on dual carriageways.

For the outlay, this isn't really value for money so I am intending to replace with Crossclimates next time around (weren't available at the time I bought the Bridgestone's, but are now thankfully). I've used Crossclimates on a number of our cars over the past few years and have always found them to be excellent.

If your tyres are quite worn, you can expect to experience more drag upon hitting standing water at the sides of the road (less tread to displace it), which could cause the pulling to the side effect you're getting. Also as mentioned above, worth having your wheel alignment checked esp. so if you are changing to a new set of tyres.

In wet weather I find the Crossclimates are fabulous and still good in hot and freezing conditions. They are very quiet as well.

I've had summer & winter tyre swaps in the past - the way forward for me is the Crossclimate.

Winter is coming...

I've a newly-purchased petrol Mazda3 which, compared to my old Golf is terrible for pulling to one side thorough puddles and generally feeling skittish in the wet. Brilliant in the dry though.

I'm guessing the heavy TDI of the Golf helped. The Mazda has Bridgestone tyres so not cheap tat.

Anyway, need to keep moving though winter and had a dedicated set of Hankook winters on steel rims for the Golf so no need to convince me of the benefits of winter tyres for snow.

Just need to decide on cross climate which I could keep on after winter or full winter set with the hassle/expense of finding a second set of rims (or storing summer tyres)

Opinions welcome along with any experiences people have of the Mazda3 in snow. The Golf with winters was amazing but after my wet driving in the Mazda I'm a bit nervous about snow.

It could depend on which Bridestone tyres are fitted - the gen-3 car (mine's a 2005-built gen-1) were normally fitted with either Toyos (mainly the 205/60 R16 on lower-mid spec models) or Dunlop Sport Maxx RTs (18in tyres on upper spec models) if I recall.

Yours sound like they are ones fitted as a second or third set. My OEM Bridgestone ER30s (summer tyres) were similar for the first few years in that they were fine in the dry, ok in the wet but then got noisy (gripped fine in the dry) but eventually were terrible in the wet.

This was the case at any time of the year, although worse in colder conditions. Oddly enough they always were fine in the snow (not that my area in East Anglia gets much), but I think that was more my driving style than the tyres.

Unless you live in an area that regularly gets significant amounts of snow in winter, then I'd strongly consider getting all season tyres. I changed my last set of (Dunlop) summer tyres (used all year-round) to all-season about 3 years ago and they've been fine for my needs - the best of the crop compare favourably to good quality summer tyres from 3-5 years ago in terms of warmer weather grip, but are better than the latest summer tyres in the cold and (from tests and reports by users - I have yet to drive in snow on this set) far better in snow.

Mine are Michelin CrossClimate+ (now replaced by the better v2*), which are 'summer biased, more suited to Southern England, including East Anglia. An alternative for such areas would be the latest Bridegstone AS tyre.

For the Midlands/parts of the North of England and other areas that experience colder conditions and a bit more snow, then ones from Goodyear and Continental.

AS tyres more suited to colder, snowy conditions tend to be from the mid-rank makes.

* The CC2 is now apparently much improved in the snow. See the tyre Reviews website for more, including Jon's recent test of a whole raft of all-season tyres, plus reports from other media outlets he publishes for comparison for group tests.

www.tyrereviews.com/

Be aware that if your Mazda3 is a Sport model shod on 18in rims as standard, check what the brake size is if you want to go the summer+winter tyre route again, as those upper spec models may (I never checked when I test drove one a few years ago) have bigger brakes that may limit you to getting 18in steel rims and equivalent winter tyres, which would obviously be vastly more expensive than fitting 16in ones.

Also check the handbook/drivers door plaque to see which combos of wheels+tyres Mazda says you can fit. The gen-3 car on the lower to mid-spec models has a less common (though slowly growing in popularity) 205/60 R16 tyre rather than the very popular (and 25-30% cheaper) 205/55 R16 tyre in the gen-1 and 2 Mazda3s.

Any more issues, by all means ask here on the Mazda3 owners website I'm also a member of - admitedly things there are a bit 'quiet', but people (myself included) do anser queries when we are able to, more often than not (there is a 'tyres and wheels' section).

www.mazda3forums.co.uk/

Best of luck.