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Comments
I like the bulges too, a bulging hood says "power dome". The high shoulders give the car a more solid appearance, which the 5-door needed. The shorter rear worries me about rearend collisions, but the NA stronger bumper should help. The 99-03 sedan looks clean, well proportioned, and sporty; the 04 sedan looks sporty and classy at the same time, especially in the Titanium color with big alloys.
The Mazda3 strikes me as the most successful scaling of large luxury car design in a small package to date. It has all the atributes and can stand on its own with higher-priced cars. Best example, if you see a picture of the 3's dash with a NAV system, compare it with the new BMW-6's dash -- they are very close in styling.
Here's my report:
Protegé LX 2.0l AT
Bought April 16, 2001
To date, 15,710 miles
No mechanical problems
Only one issue: when the dealer installed
the cassette player they forgot to reconnect
the heater. Fixed the next day.
No scratches or dings
Never driven in snow or on icy roads
Garaged on bad days
Interior still like new
fowler3
Thanks in advance!
The RE910, 930 and 950 get much better reviews.
The Firestone FR-680-02 that were stock on DX and LX from earlier years also were terrible on wet surfaces.
Have been using Dunlop SP Sport A2 tires with good results (I expect to get about 30,000 miles out of them...already passed 23,000 miles on them...perfectly OK for a tire with such good grip and handling IMO). Next set will be them or Falken ZE-512 (if I can find anyone else who'll order them besides Sears...I still don't trust them).
www.geocities.com/negatize/media/specialty/meade92_totaled.jpg
(You'll have to cut and paste this link into your address bar; Edmunds has problems with geocities URLs for some reason.)
I think the picture will speak for the tires. The car had 28,000 miles on it when this picture was taken. It (sniff) never saw another mile (sigh).
Meade
I've seen comments about hydroplaning with Protege in the past and discounted it to poor driving, now I can see that I was incorrect.
Unfortunate that there is not more choices for replacement tires.
my potenza s-03's are fantastic in the wet.
You can also find that link on the Town Hall welcome page - just scroll down and look under the Chat Icon that you'll see on the right side of the page.
See you there!
:-)
Dinu
Whether you own a Mazda, would like to own a Mazda, or just like going ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM... be sure to stop by and meet and greet your fellow Town Hall members!
/direct/view/.ef1b553
See you there!!
1999 Protege LX automatic
~65000 miles
Problems:
Hazard light bulb burned out...dealer replaced under warranty
Steering boot warped at ~600 miles, dealer replaced under warranty
Driver's side door lock actuator replaced under warranty
That is all. The car still runs like a champ. I think I am going to wait a little while longer for the timing belt replacement, the engine is non-interference so if it does snap it's not detrimental to the engine. Oil changes every 3000 miles. Otherwise, I've followed the maintenance to the book.
Pictures:
http://www.morrownet.net/negatize/
Oh yeah, I've added a nice little touch to the rear of my Protege. Canadian-spec 01+ Protege's have a chrome strip across the top of the liscense plate frame. I bought this strip off a member on clubprotege.com and installed it in less than 15 mins.
Many thanks,
Bruno
It is the same filter for both.
Ted
Dinu
Get one of those - it improved the sound, low-end grunt and fuel mileage (ok, not 'really sure about the last one) in mine
And it lasts forever (clean it with their special oil every 50K)
It made the engine sound really cool though. I actually ended up returning the filter because of the decrease in mileage. The engine still sounded the same without the filter though, weirdly.
Funny, I THOUGHT it was too good to be true that a 15- to 20-mph collision would result in only a few scratches and a ding in the bumper cover.
Sure enough, the guy got me down on the nice, polished concrete floor of the best body shop in town (hey, I ain't payin'!) and showed me where the steel beam behind my bumper cover has been ... BENT!!!
Estimate is $783.40 with the disclaimer that "possible hidden damage" may be found. It took me six weeks to get the estimate because of Isabel (and the resulting insurance craziness) and other priorities that I HAD planned on.
We go to court Friday morning.
The snot-nosed 17-year-old's mom called me a couple of weeks ago and said she plans to pay for the repair herself instead of using his insurance and having his rate increase. I told her I already had filed a claim, and his insurance probably will rise anyway since he'll probably be convicted of improper driving.
But guess what she said NEXT? She said my car's damage shouldn't be much since her son's car showed very little damage at all. I said something like, "Well, don't be surprised; things tend to be expensive these days," and she said, "Well, if it's more than a few hundred dollars, we'll be going to COURT!!!"
What a way to treat the victim!
I really, REALLY can't wait to hear the judge ask the usual question, "Has your car been fixed to your satisfaction?" Man, I can't WAIT!!!
Meade
I'm not surprised at the damage given the estimated speed of impact. Actually, I think that price estimate is pretty low given the speed of impact.
The officer has advised me to have no further communication with the loving lady prior to court, when he'll be more than happy to share the details of her harassment of Johnny's latest victim with the judge.
(Whom, by the way, as we all know, will know my last name very, very well ...)
Hee hee.
Meade
P.S. The story you have just read is true. The names were changed to poke fun at the defendant.
On topic: Just passed 45,700 very happy miles on my '99LX this morning! I am so happy to have such a well-planted, capable and fun-to-drive little car!
I just had my brakes done. I guess the squealer plate must go off early because I easily had more than .125in of brake material left on my old pads (I'm sure it's not all usable). Oh well, best not to cheap out on brakes.
I also got a ticket. Was going 76 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, but I thought it was a 60 km/h zone since this is the normal speed in Toronto.
The officer was nice enough to only write a $40 ticket for 60 km/h in a 50 km/h with no points. I guess I should stick to driving the Maxima to stay out of trouble
Dinu
Got an unsolicited compliment from a body shop manager yesterday. He'd come out to estimate Zoomster's butt damage when he remarked how nice my car looked. I said "thanks, I try to keep it that way -- it does look nice for 64,000 miles, doesn't it? And I've never had one problem with it."
He replied, "Mazda, they make a good car."
Yep.
Meade
P.S. I witnessed another rear-ender this morning. A guy was waiting to turn right on red onto the street I was on, started to go, but changed his mind after he started rolling and stopped. The guy behind him hit him in the rear, and I happened to be watching since I was across the intersection. Nice bumper smoosh.
Oh -- the guy in the rear was a marked police car.
Zoom!
Zoomzoom!
Meade
So - do cops have their own personal insurance for lame, dumb-[non-permissible content removed] mistakes like this? I imaginbe they're covered by on-the-job insurance for the times they are giving chase to apprehend someone - what about this kind of thing?
Not that I'm implying ANYTHING about cops - anyone could make that kind of mistake. Just curious how insurance works for them.
Oh - and mazdafun/mazdafan - sorry about the confusion there last night, Chow Chi
The same boy got a ticket for making a rolling stop at a stop-sign.
I got a $25 ticket for driving at 60 in a 40KMH zone - no points, thankfully.
Speeding tickets are more of a lottery - you are lucky to get one - but I also think that most people get caught after repeated offenses and a ticket or two does them good.
By the way, there was a ticket blitz here in Toronto area over the Thanksgiving weekend, for speeding and for not wearing seat-belt. One particular gal said she was not wearing seatbelt because she had got artificial breast-enhancement (boob-job) done recently and she could not wear the belt on top of that - poor gal still got a ticket and an honourable mention in the newspaper (no names).
My bright red Protege still looks pretty good when she's clean! A teenage girl was scoping it out last weekend while I was out on a shopping run. She's got good taste.
http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/rr/04mazda3.htm
Thanks!
Dinu
1999 ES: 1.8L
Same thing happened to me a couple months ago. I started to Go, but an on-coming car speeded up and I waited since the driver had the green light. A Lexus RX-300 bumped me. The driver was very redfaced and polite. When I washed my car there was only a tiny speck of paint off the bumper facia, had to look really close to see it.
In NC, in almost all cases, drivers are suppose to call the police and wait and wait and wait for one to show up. I went on and so did the other guy. But in almost all other cases there is some visible damage. I saw three rear-enders today all within a mile of each other. No wonder insurance is high here, it's the State Sport!
The law states that you are suppose to drive so you can see the entire car in front of you, or keep at least a car length between your car and the one in front, even when stopped for traffic lights.
Oh, and Meade, when that Buick Roadmaster slammed into the back of my '86 Accord at 48mph, the entire backend was pushed up under the rear window, AND there wasn't a scratch on the rear bumper facia. It was pushed downward onto the pavement. The fuel tank was under the engine, on the ground, so I couldn't drive it home. LOL! The police moved it to a ditch to prevent a fire.
I hitched a ride home with the people driving the Chevy my car was pushed into. They had bent rear fenders. And the bad driver got a $25 fine! Lower than for parking tickets.
fowler3
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PR Director
Edmunds.com
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
Review your vehicle
fowler3
-lovetrain
Run great.
But... it SQUEAKS/CREAKS like an old boat when it goes over bumps the first couple of times in cold climate. This started happening after 45,000 miles. Never before.
Question:
What is causing this? Shocks or springs?
just lube them real good?
climate. This started happening after 45,000 miles. Never before.
Question: What is causing this? Shocks or springs?
Arthritis!!
fowler3