Faults:

Timing belt replaced.

Passenger side electric window switch replaced.

General Comments:

Brilliant and cheap little sports car.

Bought on a whim for a bit of fun - has since become my daily driver. Fantastic build quality, interior is sexy in black leather. Everything feels solid and high quality - no rattling cheap plastics.

Handling is excellent, engine is fizzy and responsive. Power is mostly through the upper revs of each gear, feels rather like driving a rotary. Driving position is low slung and sporty, bucket seats are comfortable but not outstanding.

Interior space for two is more than ample. Like most coupes, the rear seats are mostly for show/parcel shelf. Folding rear seats give a surprisingly large boot space for such a small car.

On the downside, the tiny V6 is surprisingly thirsty, but remains a joy to drive and is smooth as silk. All in all, a fantastic and largely forgotten little sports car of the nineties.

Faults:

Alternator failed at 240,000.

Fuel pump went at 241,000.

Engine started leaking oil from pressure switch and various gaskets at 243,000.

Check engine light from 243,000.

Door trims and seats were deteriorating rapidly.

General Comments:

A brilliant car while it drove, however either I picked up a lemon, or they suffer from some pretty poor reliability.

Speed-wise it was decent enough to eat Commodores, but it excelled in handling. Best handling car I've driven, going through corners at 80km/h no problem, Didn't complain about anything.

Pulling the handbrake to do a 180 was a great feeling, you would not lose enough traction for it to slide out, but lose enough to spin the rear end out.

Note the reliability would not have been affected by the things I'm writing here, as 95% of the time I would drive safely and ECONOMICALLY :)

On that note, economy wise I'd heard some bad things, but I could get 100k from 10L mostly city + small street driving.

Very attractive car to drive also, it would get lots of compliments and turned heads!

Sad to see go, but it caused too much trouble, could not afford to keep it any more.

Faults:

My head gasket blew at 178,000kms, my dizzy went at 175,000, thermostat went at 178,000, spark plugs and rocket cover replaced at 177,000.

General Comments:

Great small sporty car, quick off the mark and sweet to cruise around in, until problems with the motor occurred. I had a full service history and still problems happened.

NOT cheap to fix, and a Mazda specialist has to fix it, which ends up costing BIG. Have to get genuine parts, which cost 3 times as much as normal parts.

Faults:

Ducting for air intake split between filter box and throttle body.

General Comments:

Absolute little corker.

While it does get run down on the straights by the 'big boys', on the tight windy stuff it kicks the proverbial.

Keep her singing above 4500rpm (which she loves) and you've plenty of power on tap.

While relatively thirsty for a 1.8, it still beats filling up a bogan box, i. e commodore - of which many have given up trying to keep up on the windy stuff.

Face it people - the V8 will soon be dead, 4 pots will be king, but we'll still have that little bit of something extra.