Good or bad. I’m on my on my third. (Here’s my newest, a Mazda3 just shy of 2 months old. I had another Mazda 3before it and a Protégé 5 before that one. I’ve loved them all, but I expect that there’s some of you out there who hate them too. You’re wrong :p, but that’s ok.
I’ve never owned a Mazda, but in 2003 I test-drove one. The steering wheel vibrated so badly that my hands started to ache. The salesman said it was just “the Mazda feel.” I didn’t like the Mazda feel so I didn’t buy the car. (Or what the salesman said, either.)
Did your Protégé body completely disintegrate like the ones around here do? I’m sure the junkyard is full of Protege’s with only 100,000 miles and trashed bodies.
Wife daily drives a 2006 Mazda6. We’re waiting until the kids are a little older before getting a new Mazda6 so that they’re not destroying the back seat of a new car. The 2006 has been great. No major repairs required and it is quite the driver’s car for a budget car. Suspension is tight, 5 speed auto transmission shifts sequentially and hold gears like it should, etc.
Paint quality and body finish quality sucks though. Rust in weird places and the clearcoat is coming off in sheets. Otherwise quite happy.
I just bought a used Mazda3 last month. Decided I needed a new car an did a ton of research, looking for reliability, performance, and gas mileage at a price point under $14,000, which led me to a 2012 Mazda3 i-Touring Skyactiv with 46,000 miles on it. Got it for a shade under $11,600 and feel like I got a good deal.
Had a minor issue just a day off the lot (headlights flickered when decelerating) but all it required was a PCM update which they did for free. It’s been great so far. A big difference from the car I traded in, a 2004 Crown Victoria, which was like driving a La-Z-Boy on wheels, but it was time to move on and I’m happy with the Mazda3.
I have a 2002 Mazda Tribute with 185K miles. She is definitely starting to show her age with a few rust spots and some interior wear. TCO has been amazing with this vehicle as I’ve only had a few minor service issues over the years outside of normal maintenance items.
I hate to be giving her up soon but it is past time for me to get a newer and upgraded vehicle. If Mazda still made the Tribute I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. This has been a great vehicle for me for many, many years now.
Nope, it gave me 12 good years and then an idiot hit it and totaled it. Fortunately she was a well insured idiot, which allowed me to step up the game a bit and buy the 3.
FYI the first 3 links in the OP go to 404 Error pages.
Damn! I copied them into a folder viewable by the public, and then linked to the private ones. These should work.
I’ve had a 6 for just under a year. Drives real nice and people do compliment it a lot. So far no issues.
My main complaint is the light that tells you the engine is cold. It’s a blue light right near the blue high-beam light. I learned to ignore the blue light, so now I drive occasionally with my high beams on.
I have that same cold engine light, but I don’t think I’ve even put on my high beams yet, so I’ve had no chance to confuse the two.
Mrs R and I have owned two first-generation Miatas. Wonderful cars. I crashed the first–pea gravel on a highway off-ramp–but the second is still going strong. Aside from the usual first-generation problem of an oil leak which drips on the heater hose, leading to a blown hose and overheating, it’s been a very reliable car.
And such a pleasure to drive. I tell my friends that it’s noisy, cramped, rough-riding, and slow–and that’s what makes it so much fun 
I think the current Mazda 6 is a very good-looking car, and if my current car poops out, the 6 is on the short list.
The 787B was my favorite sports prototype in Gran Turismo 4. Very smooth and predictable handling and (weirdly) great fuel economy.
I had a ‘81 GLC hatchback, a 08’ Mazda3 hatchback and now I have a 2014 CX-5.
I loved the GLC and the Mazda3, great handling, great gas mileage and not of bit of trouble with anything.
The CX-5 is nice enough but kind of boring–mostly because it’s an automatic. I would’ve preferred a manual transmission but that only came with the smaller engine. I picked it over some other small SUVs because of a customer loyalty deal and I had a good relationship with the dealer–they honored an extended warranty cash-out even though the issuing company had gone out of business. Also I was happy with the way I was treated by their service department.
The Mazda6 looks almost exactly like the Mazda3, except slightly bigger.
In fact one of the things that make Mazdas really interesting to me is that they maintain a consistent style along almost their whole line – Mazda2, Mazda3, Mazda CX-3, Mazda CX-5, Mazda6, Mazda CX-7, and the Mazda CX-9.
Drove the RX-8 once. Great handling car. Realy seat of the pants feel. It’s as if the car is built to rotate around the lowest center of gravity - your ass. The rotary engine is a bit pitchy but I guess you eventually get used to it.
Back in the days of my youth, we had a cat we named Mazda because he purred constantly.
I had a 1987 323 manual hatchback for over 27 years.
Pretty much a great little car. Few complaints: e.g., the sheet metal was a little on the thin side.
Great gas mileage, good cargo space, easy to drive, etc. Learned to do more and more maintenance myself as time went on.
The original cost/years of ownership is ridiculously low. And upkeep/per year was generally in the range of 1 new car monthly payment or less.
FtGKid2 drove it for the last couple of years and didn’t pay attention to warning signs of problems enough. Eventually just went into full on smoking everywhere mode and called the scrapyard people to take it away.
If I was looking for a new(ish) car now, I’d look for something like the 3.
One of my friends asked me if we Mazda enthusiasts did anything like wave or flash our lights at each other as we crossed paths on the road. I told him I never noticed anything like that.
Have you?
I bought a 2000 Protege new at 0% interest. And my negotiating skills were excellent.
On Saturday:
Me: I’m not going to buy today, but what price are looking for?
Dealer: What were you thinking?
Me: I was thinking $17,200.
Dealer: (Randomly punching keys on calculator) I can do that.
On Sunday:
Dealer: So have you decided?
Me: Yes, I’ll go for it.
Dealer: What did we agree on? $16,200.
Me: If you’re OK with that.
There were three things that bugged me about the car though. One was the front speakers were next to my knees and it made it difficult to hear the radio/tape/whatever, especially when the windows were open. Two was that there seemed to be a dead spot in the automatic transmission around 40 mph. It just didn’t seem to know which gear it should be in. I forget the third. My brother-in-law got a Mazda 3 around 2008, and I told him my complaints about the Protege. It seems that his 3 had the same issues.
I sold it after 12 years. It was a good car.
I’ve noticed that my automatic transmission is a bit iffy during hill climbing. But the good news is that I can “manually” shift and take control when I want and decide which gear to put it in. My Protégé 5 was stick shift, and I never had a problem with it.