Faults:

Nothing out of the ordinary has gone wrong with the car. Usual maintenance items, brakes, tires, sensor, timing belt, oil changes, cold pack for distributor, repaired small oil leak, replaced A/C discharge hose etc.

General Comments:

I have a 2000 Mazda Protege with 255,000 miles on it. I drive the car daily back and forth to work. Every morning I am amazed that the car still cranks.

I have never had major problems with the car. I use synthetic oil, premium gas and platinum spark plugs. I must add that I do not roughhouse the car. I do not push it too hard. However, with the 1.8L engine, you can't take off very quickly. Once you get going, it picks up speed pretty well.

The car still gets 34-38 mpg, even with the high miles. I am taking it in for its 4th timing belt / water pump change. I have never had a car that lasted this long.

Oh yeah, the car is not a comfortable ride, and the seats don't wear well either. I compare driving the car to driving a go-cart. Some days I hate getting in the car. But I can't fault it too much, it is still running OMG.

Faults:

Ignition coil. 35,000 miles.

Front windshield gasket. 45,000 miles.

Front sway bar end links. 105,000 miles.

Mass air meter boot. 130,000.

General Comments:

The ignition coil was replaced after the check engine light came on a couple of times and it was recalled.

The front windshield gasket was replaced when a high pitch whistling noise was heard at 70 MPH.

The front sway bar end links were replaced, because any time you hit a pothole or go over a speed bump, you could here a popping noise.

The mass air meter boot was replaced because the check engine light would come on and the car was running a little rough. There were cracks in the ribbed section of the boot.

Faults:

First we had to get an engine flush only a month after we got it. Then we had the locking mechanism replaced 3 times.

All the spark plugs have been replaced with all the wires.

The A/C started draining into our floor board, and the dealership fixed it 5 times until they finally decided to redirect the drain.

No hubcaps have ever stayed on.

We replaced the A/C compressor clutch.

We have had to replace both CO2 sensors.

We had to replace something 2 years ago that required the whole transmission to be disassembled. And still the check engine light is on, and we haven't been able to pass inspection because of it. Very frustrating.

Taking it the Auto-zone tomorrow to get yet another diagnostic test done to see what is wrong now. I will never ever purchase a Mazda again.

Faults:

First at all, the A/C stopped working, and just at 76000 miles the transmission starts giving problems. I took the car to the shop and they told me the transmission had to be changed. I did it.

The car was having the same problem until they found out that the problem was the computer, and the computer was replaced.