Faults:

...really nothing has gone wrong.

My belt has been squealing for about 30,000 miles now, but I am too lazy to take 10 minutes to tighten it. It only does it when there is moisture in the air and I have the heater/air fan going.

I do; however, have to complain about the tire size, because of the high cost and the trouble of getting a tire that wears well in that size.

General Comments:

Simply amazing! I abuse my Protege to the fullest every day. I bought the car in Sept '05 with 46000 and now have 105000 miles. I deliver pizza 6 nights a week, and rod on it every time I drive. I accelerate hard and brake even harder, yet have only had to change them recently (front pads/rotors at 100k). I change oil somewhere between every 4k and 6k miles.

I corner to the point of ... well... you would wear your seatbelt if you rode with me. Because of this, tires only last me approx. 14000 miles, but it's well worth it.

Also, I live in Minnesota and have snow tires. With snow tires, it handles just as nice as my XC700. Example: delivering pizza in the snowstorm we recently accumulated 26" and PASSING people in 4 wheel drive trucks .. they were going 30.. I took her out of OD and held it 3/4 throttle to maintain 60mph with the snow beating on the floor boards. ABUSE!!! I AM DEFINATELY A MAZDA FAN... and I HATE FOREIGN CARS! I love classic muscle and am a union, american kind of guy.. but man do these things last and save money!

MOREOVER: READ ON!

Before this car I had bought a 91 Protege DX with 168000 on it for 550.00 The car drove great and ran great, but to squeeze a bit more gas mileage out of it I had the plugs changed.. well, some bozo didn't use anti seize and the head was stripped in one of the plug ports, so we did a helicoil job with the head still on the engine.. bad idea. A metal shaving fuzed to that valve and I only got 30lbs of compression from it.. mind the the other three were still like new at 160psi.

Long story short: the car lasted me 14,000 miles until I found my current Protege and sold the 91 (running on all 3 cyl) to my best friend, who went on to add 19000 more miles before that cylinders piston and rod went to heck. Oh, by the way: running on 3 cylinders it still had a decent amount of power and the best part 28MPG!!!!!! With a bad cylinder!

Faults:

I had owned the car for only 2 weeks when it stalled at a red light. It is an odd stall though. The car idles fine while sitting at a stop, but as soon as you remove your foot from the break (to put it on the accelerator and go) the car stalls. You have to put it in park or neutral and start it again and it will start immediately and run fine. It has done this about 8-10 times in the 4 years I have owned it. Every time I take it in after this happens the dealership says that the computer is not recording the stall, nor is is "throwing" any codes as to what the reason for the stall is. They never replace any parts. Today 4 years after the very first stall it is in the shop again and they will be replacing the idle control valve. This after years of telling me to replace the spark plugs, vacuum clean the engine and multiple other costly and pointless maintenance items. We will see if it will work.

General Comments:

I love my car, I just wish it would not stall.