Faults:

Queried first service cost of £330 at 11000 miles, only an oil change? Ur so I thought. Must be gold in the oil!

It would seem that a fault with the injectors, which should be treated as a recall, but isn't, is the reason for the hiked up charge.

Super sneaky Mazda charge the customer for this modification. If you refuse to pay for the modifications, then Mazda will tell you that's the end of their warranty, you are on your own.

This fault in the injector system lets diesel oil run down the cylinders into the sump, which then dilutes the lubrication of the engine oil!!! Hence the normal high and low marks on the dipstick, but wait a higher mark above the high mark is on the dipstick. When your oil level reaches this mark, Mazda says you must have your oil changed. Why, because a third of what is showing on the dip stick is diesel fuel. Therefore resulting in diminished lubrication, and Mazda has the audacity to pass on the cost to the customer, hide it in the first service cost. By the way, at 70,000 miles, they have to be changed again, so another hefty bill to look forward to.

Be warned, you won't be told this when they are all smiles in the showroom, dreaming of getting their hands on you hard earned dosh.

General Comments:

I never thought a Japanese manufacturer would stoop so low. This is my second Mazda, the first was in 1976, I bought a 626 1.8 petrol. It also although petrol was an oil burner, might as well have been a diesel, the amount of engine oil it got through. I had to carry a one gallon can of engine oil in those days to top before the return journey.

I hadn't touched Mazda since 1976 until 2009, and I wish I'd stayed away.

Problem was I and a lot of others thought these were Ford engines and the 6 was a Mondeo under a different skin, as Ford owns a 33% share of Mazda. How wrong I was. I blame Ford too, if they had designed the new Mondeo a decent shape, I would never have bought a Mazda 6 in the first place.

Faults:

Rattle from near side rear door, not sure what.

Slight metallic rattle from behind dash.

Suffers from misting up problems, to the point where water runs down the rear and even front window - the A/C is pretty much running the whole time.

Radio de-tunes itself for no reason - sounds like a common fault.

General Comments:

The above problems are more of an annoyance, rather than failures, although the rattle in the door will need to be sorted when it goes for its service, as it's getting quite annoying.

I'm surprised that a car of this size doesn't have reverse sensors fitted as standard on the spec, but it does have folding mirrors, climate, auto lights and auto wipers, plus the RVM, although I've always found using mirrors does the same job, but without the beeping.

It does have a nice layout, everything seems to fit together nicely, but some of the plastics do feel cheap and a little on the hard side.

At the moment the gearbox is a little too stiff, and doesn't really like being rushed along, to the point where it has refused to go into gear on occasion. Maybe this will loosen up as some more mileage goes on it.

The handling is good for such a big car, and not too harsh on the rough stuff; it does give some confidence on the twisty stuff.

The engine is OK, sounds like any other diesel that I've ever driven, so nothing really special about it - although I was expecting a greater feel of power from the 2.2, but on a positive side, it does seem to be returning good economy, especially on long trips.

But I wish the computer for the range, avg MPG, etc was easier to obtain, rather than having to keep scrolling across the display all the time, to find the required info.

A very positive thing is the space inside the car, and the way the rear seats fold with just an easy touch on the release mechanism, nice one!

Also not really sure what the ECO mode on the climate is for, there doesn't seem to be much about it in the manual - on my old car you could switch the ECO mode on and off, nice and easy.

On the whole it's a good car, but I do think that Mazda need to go back to the drawing board to improve on a few things, to make it a better car - as there's a lot of good competition out there.

By the way, it's rubbish in the snow, even with a diesel hanging over the front wheels, but I would put that down to the run flat tyres that are fitted to it, on the account of no spare.