Faults:

Valve cover gasket replaced at 150,000 miles.

CD replaced three times under warranty; never worked longer than 10,000 miles.

The hubcaps all came off a while ago; they were cheap and just fell off at some point.

General Comments:

Car is extremely reliable, runs like it will never quit after 170,000 miles.

Seats are comfy, which matters a lot since I have back problems. Love the moonroof.

MPG are still very good after 11 years.

It has a roomy trunk, big enough to transport son's hockey gear and several sizeable items from Home Depot (Not the hot water heater, though!)

It started off having great acceleration, which faded after about 40,000 miles.

Faults:

First problem I had with this car was the muffler rusted & rotted. The car had less than 40,000 on it. Cost approx $400.00 to have Mazda replace it. Really aggravated me to have to pay out that kind of money when car had so little mileage.

Shortly after that, it was the engine light. Of course I got the bank 1, too lean codes.. tried changing oil, flushing the trans, getting fuel injection flushed.. The car was still not running right, idling hard, would clear the code and it kept coming back. The car had to go to dealer so I could shell out more money to replace the O2 sensor. WOW, is that a pricey little item.

The car was OK for about a year, maybe 18 months.

In July this year, surprise, engine light again, car running badly, progressively got worse, bucking, bogging down, hesitating, started stalling. This turned out to be a really easy fix... all the problems were being caused by a $20 /$30 vacuum hose that had 2 huge splits that were not obvious unless you looked at the hose and physically checked it. My brother was looking at the car at my house, told me to rev the engine a bit and air came blowing right out at him. Changed the hose, cleared the code. Car is fine and passed inspection.

Check your hose.

General Comments:

The location of the locks jab you in the arm because they do not recess all the way.

Basically quick & reliable.

Handles pretty good at higher speeds.

I don't feel really safe in it as the doors are very light.

Faults:

Nothing other than routine maintenance.

General Comments:

This car's handling is amazing.

Acceleration from a stop is disappointing.

Interior is roomy for a little compact sedan.

H VAC system works great.

Noisy interior though you can probably hear a pin drop outside your door with all windows tightly raised.

If I was ever to buy another Mazda, I wouldn't buy their base model.

Faults:

Check engine light 2 times.

Gas pedal stuck when cold start?

Electrical connections burnt, dirty.

Rocker panels starts to get rusty.

A/C not working.

General Comments:

Cheap to own.

Handles good.

Starts everyday.

Roomy for its size

We use the car everyday, for shopping and the commute to work. This past summer, we loaded her up and went camping. It works if you know how to pack. It's a LX, but it has 1.8 engine, touring package. We drove over 600 km one way this summer and it works fine, but it's not comfortable on long runs. It was never built for that.

The only problems is check engine light that comes on. We had it checked and they said it was fixed, but 3 weeks later it came back on.

The other problem is that the gas gets stuck when starting with cold engine; I guess it's the cold start, once the engine is warm and the idle is about 800-900 rpm, it's good. You can push the pedal and it comes loose before that. If anybody has an idea about this, please let me know.

The car got a lot of mileage on it, but it runs fine. We like its good handling now when it's winter. I would recommend this car; it's good as a second car or as your very first.