Five years ago I needed a new vehicle. I wanted a small SUV and I was determined to research the hell out of my options, narrow them down, and test drive my three top contenders.
After much internet info-gathering, including the creation of a detailed spreadsheet, I came up with my three: Subaru, Mazda, and Honda.
Long story short: I first drove the Mazda CX5 and went no further. I bought one the next day. I liked it so much that two years later I bought a second Mazda (CX-30 this time).
I’ve lost count of how many Toyota’s I’ve owned, but I’ve also owned a few Mazda’s, including a black Miata with gold trim that I loved, and a few Honda’s, which I could see myself buying. again. I’ve never owned a Nissan and I can’t explained why. I guess I just never saw myself driving one.
I do not buy ASian cars but many friends do and so i get to ride in them. The Hondas and V-W’s are comfy and roomy but Noisy. When On the highway we cannot talk due to road and mechanical noise. The Mazda (CX5?) was MUCH quieter, almost like my wife’s Lincoln
Living in Japan, other than when I had a BMW, I’ve only had Japanese cars. The price of the car and cost of maintenance make owning other cars more expensive.
I had a Nissan and then three different Toyotas.
I’m not enough of a car person to really care, and I’ve never had a problem car.
If any, it would be Subaru. But I’ve owned a Honda and my wife drove a Toyota for years. For some reason, I’m not inclined to drive Toyotas; too bland in most cases for me but that’s probably more perception than reality.
On three separate occasions, I’ve compared a similar Honda and a Toyota, and in all three cases i bought the Honda. Sometimes it was safety ratings. Usually, i just liked the Honda more.
I had a Honda CR-V back in about 2003. It was a good car, but when I went to trade it in on a 2006, the dealer refused to negotiate. So, along with the fact that they had made the cabin uncomfortable in the newer model, that was it for Honda for me.
I bought a Toyota Prius IV around 2012 (I think). It ran well and was roomy enough, but was just too low to the ground, which made it difficult to see cross traffic approaching.
So I sold the above car and bought a 2016 Mazda CX-5, which I still have. Other than the Nav system, I have zero complaints about it. They’ve since discarded that system, which is to their credit. It was (and is) unusable. It’s the best snow car I’ve ever owned and I will continue to drive it until I’m unable to drive. It doesn’t hurt that after ten years I only have about 20K miles on it.
Closest I’ve come to owning any of those four brands was a Datsun 510 wagon I had in the early '80s. I liked it much better than I had either of the pair of Fords that preceded it.
Out of the 4 you mentioned, I’ve only owned my Honda HR-V, and I love it. Outside of oil changes, filters, tires, and the recommendation maintenance as it reached 50,000 miles and more, I’ve only had to replace the battery. It was over 5 years old, so I consider that normal. It’s very peppy and, if I don’t drive like an Andretti, I get almost 27 MPG. Truly love it.
Since 2006, I’ve only owned (two) Mazda 3s. Both were two-years old used model when I bought them: a 2004 (for $12,500 with 10k mileage) and a 2014 ($16,750 with <1k mileage). I drove the 2004 for ten years and 130k miles with no issues; just regular maintenance like brakes and battery. The 2014 (which is now also ten years under my ownership) has 99k miles, but in the last two months I did have to replace the clutch assembly, the high-pressure fuel pump, and a ball joint (for a total of $2500 in repairs.)
I’ve been very happy with them. They are fun to drive. They are both stick. Have decent zip to them, and the current one runs at about 33mpg mix of city and highway (my driving is mostly city these days. On the highway it gets around 40 mpg.) When I retire this car, I would likely get a Mazda again.
I was originally in the market for a Toyota or Honda when I bought that first Mazda (I had a ratty 1991 Nissan Stanza I had bought for $500 a year and a half previous), but the used car place I visited didn’t have too many stick shifts of either on the lot, but they had a Mazda. The salesperson convinced me to take it for a test drive, and I was absolutely smitten. I have never fallen in love with cars, really, but that’s the closest I’ve come. So I bought it. Price was good (paid cash), and the car had proved itself to be a wise choice.
One other thing that people in the market may notice: Mazdas cost a lot to fix because of their design quirks, and tend to be driven by drivers with a more aggressive profile (younger and more sports-oriented). This means that, in general, they will have higher - often much higher - insurance premiums than comparable cars from other manufacturers. Even if you don’t plan to get into a collision that you are liable for, this all gets rolled into the calculations.
In general mine’s a Toyota/Honda family, Toyota-dominant. Myself owned Toyota, Honda and Nissan the last 27 years, still have the 2009 Accord as my daily beater. The 2018 Nissan was just perfectly adequate for my needs at the time and place (sold it when I moved back to PR rather than go through the hassle of having it shipped and taxed all over again, got to benefit from the post-C19 price bump), no more no less. The Toyotas (Camry for self, and a succession of Mom’s SUVs) have been mechanically nigh indestructible though at times a wee bit too meh even for a nerd like myself. As mentioned the Camry drove and rode like, well, what it had become: a midsized American sedan, “your father’s Oldsmobile”. The Accord is no Beemer but at least I can tell I am on a road.
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TBF, though, with some of these the versions from before the 20teens might as well be a different brand than the one of the 2020s, what with various changes in design paradigm and applied tech (e.g. Toyota going all-hybrid for the Camry and Rav4). And if you look around car-centric boards and channels of course the people who bother commenting have a generalized conclusion that everything has enshittified. Dunno though how much of that is based on that the 90s and early 00s Toyotas and Hondas got people too used to the notion of something that they could take the distance to the Moon with only a couple of visits to Jiffy Lube a year. Particular hate is directed at the switch to CVTs for economy/midrange models (everyone but Mazda) with special dishonorable mention to Nissan who adopted early and bit it hard; and at the small displacement turbo engines (Honda then Nissan) starting in the late 20teens. Meanwhile on a brighter note, Mazda seems to have been experiencing a Redemption Arc ever since they disassociated from Ford.
I’ll just say that that was, in fact, five decades ago, and your bad experience was with a problematic engine design that Mazda largely* went away from decades ago, and at a time when Mazda was still relatively new to making passenger cars, as well as new to the U.S. market.
They have gotten a lot better in the decades since, and have been regularly at or near the top of various auto quality ratings for years.
But, I get it: once bitten, twice shy.
*- the one exception being the RX-7/RX-8 sports car, which they continued to produce until 2012. Otherwise, they had switched away from the Wankel, and to traditional piston engines, for the rest of their product line by the late '70s or early '80s.
My parents were solid Mazda people for many years, largely because there was a reasonably local dealer with a good service department, and mostly, a service advisor/shop manager that they really trusted.
I would say that I’m more fickle, but as I think back, I guess I was a Mazda person too, for a while at least.
I’d have to be another who says Subaru. We currently have three in the driveway. One is a BRZ, though. It’s identical to the Toyota 86 in pretty much everything but badges.
I did have a second generation Honda Fit, loved every bit of it.
I have owned a Nissan, Toyota, Mazda and Acura. The Acura might have been my favorite of the ones I had, and it technically is a Honda (In Japan it is not marketed separately as it is in the US). I bought all of them used, except for the Toyota which was a 2003 Prius that I had to order because they were so in demand that year.
I never had any problems with them, though I was disappointed I could not buy a Toyota Hybrid Mini-van Hybrid when I first moved back to the US even though they were available in Japan. I had to settle for a Chrysler one of those, which has worked fine as well. I have seen the newest Toyota Prius around and would likely go after one of those once my current Mazda 3 hatchback conks out.
Honda at the moment. My wife has a CR-V, her second, which has been great, and I have an Accord, which is fine for my needs.
Before that I had a Prius, which was fine, but started falling apart at the 10 year mark. Plus, when my 9 volt battery died, the Toyota dealer sold me a bad one, and refused to acknowledge it didn’t work when I brought it back because it didn’t charge. My mechanic proved it and I brought it back and got another under warranty.
One more reason for no Toyota - they came out against fuel standards, where Honda didn’t.
I test drove the other makes, but never liked them particularly.