I used to own a cool P5...

pcb

The Diagram Dude
:
2002 MP5
Now she's a rusty turd...



Maybe she won't look so bad after her next cancer treatment (the yearly undercoating).
 
There's very few P5's left around here... They've all dissolved... Or look like this...

 
I can't stand looking at my car. It rusts at an incredible rate.

Mazda is so flippant of rust. It's pathetic. Other Japanese manufacturers had problems with rust in the 80's (keyword: had). Meanwhile, Mazda is still saying, "**** you, customers, we're still going to produce s*** that rusts out in 5-10 years." Have a look at the Mazda 3, it's just as bad as the P5.

There is a fine line that separates poor designs made from genuine mistakes, and poor designs made from unabashed ignorance, but Mazda fits squarely in the latter.

This is why a I'll never buy a Mazda again.
 
I can't stand looking at my car. It rusts at an incredible rate.

Mazda is so flippant of rust. It's pathetic. Other Japanese manufacturers had problems with rust in the 80's (keyword: had). Meanwhile, Mazda is still saying, "**** you, customers, we're still going to produce s*** that rusts out in 5-10 years." Have a look at the Mazda 3, it's just as bad as the P5.

There is a fine line that separates poor designs made from genuine mistakes, and poor designs made from unabashed ignorance, but Mazda fits squarely in the latter.

This is why a I'll never buy a Mazda again.

Not all mazdas rust out if theyre looked after properly and oil sprayed every year. Man theres this old lady who lives down the steet from me and owns a protege ES i think its a 2001 it looks identical to mine only this thing has not a single speck of rust. I offer to buy it from her allllll the time but she just doesnt want to sell. When i say not a speck of rust i mean not a speck of rust and i live in canada. Even mine isnt that bad, i get it oil sprayed since i bought it, but the rear fenders were pooched somebody tried to fix it using bondo, but i decided to have them cut out and replaced.
 
I can't stand looking at my car. It rusts at an incredible rate.

Mazda is so flippant of rust. It's pathetic. Other Japanese manufacturers had problems with rust in the 80's (keyword: had). Meanwhile, Mazda is still saying, "**** you, customers, we're still going to produce s*** that rusts out in 5-10 years." Have a look at the Mazda 3, it's just as bad as the P5.

There is a fine line that separates poor designs made from genuine mistakes, and poor designs made from unabashed ignorance, but Mazda fits squarely in the latter.

This is why a I'll never buy a Mazda again.

Not really.

Subaru has a lot of problems with rear sub frames rusting away. They have issued a recall or two.

There is a class action lawsuit against Nissan for floor pans that dissolve in 02-08 cars.

We all know about Toyota trucks breaking in half from rusty frames, and their buy-back program.

Hyundai recalled 240,000 2006-11 model cars because of rusting rear suspension. Kia has similar issues.

It's not a problem limited to Mazda.
 
I remember reading that all P5's were 100% manufactured in Japan and the have very strick laws about using recycled metal.

Apparently it's really hard to get all the impurities out of the metal in the smelting process so our cars are really prone to rusting.
 
Why not get another one? They're cheap nowadays.

I would but it would have to be one from outside the salt belt.

Maybe one of you guys from Texas can sell me your car?? (free delivery of vehicle would help)

Till then I'll keep spraying my car every year till my ass falls through the floorboards.

(my car was 6 years old and never sprayed when I bought it.)
 
Not really.

Subaru has a lot of problems with rear sub frames rusting away. They have issued a recall or two.

There is a class action lawsuit against Nissan for floor pans that dissolve in 02-08 cars.

We all know about Toyota trucks breaking in half from rusty frames, and their buy-back program.

Hyundai recalled 240,000 2006-11 model cars because of rusting rear suspension. Kia has similar issues.

It's not a problem limited to Mazda.

I agree, there are other Japanese problems.

I still see Mazda as the worst offender. Their rust problems are not acute to one part/area. It's all over the car.
 
I have not seen any issues with rusting in non-road salt states.

Don't blame the car, blame the people that are putting that horrible salt on the roads.

undercarriage-rust.jpg
 
Every car rusts because of road salt but Mazdas rust 5,000 X faster than anything else.

Absolutely blame the car.
 
Every car rusts because of road salt but Mazdas rust 5,000 X faster than anything else.

Absolutely blame the car.
Yikes! that is quite a lot...

What can be done differently by Mazda that the rust proof car companies are doing? Besides fiberglass, plastic, and aluminum?
 
Yikes! that is quite a lot...

What can be done differently by Mazda that the rust proof car companies are doing? Besides fiberglass, plastic, and aluminum?

Better quality steel (i.e. heavier gauge with better rust proofing instead of just zinc coating it all), better paint/clear coat/undercoating from factory...

Perhaps Mazda should take some lessons on body design from Volvo (or hire the bodywork engineers from the now defunct Saab) to manufacture a better car...Look how long those cars run without rust (living in the rust belt I still see 30+ year old Volvo 240's and the occasional 40+ year old 144 running around rust free or at most with minimal surface rust, unrestored).

Japanese cars seem to have the worst reliability when it comes to their bodies...Subaru with the rear wheel arch/subframe cancer being the biggest one, followed by our little Mazda's. It really is the quality of the steel/paint. A good friend of mine who's been driving Japanese vehicles for longer than I've been alive once told me that back in the 70's/80's (even into the early 90s) these cars used to be much worse when it came to rust, due to the use of zinc galvanizing as a rust protector on the body panels. Had to do with not having the right formulation of paint at the time to stick properly to the zinc in the steel...Not sure how true any of that is, take it with a grain of salt (no pun intended) as I never researched into it...But in their defense the mechanical reliability is much higher/more robust than their USDM counterparts. Case in point, look at the 80's/early 90s Subaru's (DL/GL/GL-10/Loyale). Those damn things would run 300k miles plus before they died mechanically, albeit at about 150k your ass was dragging on the ground from the rust in the chassis...
 
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What sucks for me is that the car still runs great and looks pretty good under the hood.

It's the underneath that sucks.









 
Good grief...you guys have it tough up north. I mean, your cars that don't have adequate/good rust protection have it tough up north.
 
Yea... And I've got noise coming from the back wheels.

I thought it was the snow tires but it must be the bearings because I've got the summer tires on now and it's still buzzing.

I don't know if I wanna put new hubs on a two dollar car...

I'll probably wait until the stereo can't coverup the noise...
 
It's just the salt, I'm up here in Washington, where it rains more often than not (aside from the last couple of years, weather's been very mild lately). And my car is rust free. And it was parked outside for the first 10 years of its life, and still never been undercoated or anything.
 
There are these available for anyone that might be interested...


Nice to see they have that part, as it seems that when I searched "RUSTED MAZDA", about 50% of the images were of this area on 99-03 Protg, and Protg 5's...

I have only had 1 Mazda that ever had any rust issues, and that was a 16k mile 1992 Miata bought from Chicago.
 
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