Greetings from a Mazda5 n00b!

Welcome to another Bay Area(close enough!) member. I've passed near your town quite a few times on trips down south.
 
Hi Evan,

Nice to meet another TDIer. I wonder how many of us there are. Ours is a '98 Jetta. Needed the M5's interior height to haul our recumbents around. Just passed 1500k and very satisfied. The M5 is actually our third Mazda.

tschin
 
The Katskin seats are great. I helped a friend put some in his Miata, it's kind of messy to do upholstery, but it definitely is do-able. They aren't that expensive, either. Not that you need them in CA but that would be the time to put in seat heaters, too. (Or, "Bun Warmers" as we call them out here on the tundra) So was it difficult getting a car that got traded minutes before you got it? Like, paperwork trauma or anything, or was the dealer cool with all of it?
 
The dealer was great, the salesguy I was dealing with actually pulled me aside and told me about the one that was being traded in, then snuck me out back so I could look at it while the traders-in were doing paperwork. Within 2 minutes of looking it over I told him I wanted it, it was in that nice of condition.

Good to hear that someone else has managed to reskin their seats on their own, it's a project that I will likely take on as soon as my kids are a little bit older and/or the current upholstery has taken enough of a beating.
 
http://www.miata.net/garage/upholstery.html
this is a good thing to look at before you get started. Obviously the 5 seats are a little different than Miata seats (5's don't have seat speakers built in, and I don't know if there is a "pan" under there or not) but the idea is the same. You probably have upholstery shops near you that could do it as well. The only tool we needed to buy was a "hog ring puller" but I think it wasn't any more expensive than a regular pliers.
 
So what does an '06 with gaudy chrome rims and the worst tint idea ever, go for?

$14k. Pretty good around here; they seem to be relatively hard to find and this one is in fantastic condition, in spite of the rims and tint... I still haven't actually seen a manual one, which is a big reason why I was OK with the automatic (that and it's the wife's car and she prefers auto.)
 
$14k. Pretty good around here; they seem to be relatively hard to find and this one is in fantastic condition, in spite of the rims and tint... I still haven't actually seen a manual one, which is a big reason why I was OK with the automatic (that and it's the wife's car and she prefers auto.)


I friggen hate Los Banos. Whenever I drive 152 I dread slowing down through that speedtrap of a town.
 
I friggen hate Los Banos. Whenever I drive 152 I dread slowing down through that speedtrap of a town.

Good to know! Thanks!(yupnope)

You can help you and me uot by writing your congressman and telling him to back the plans for the 152 bypass. We Los Banosians aren't too thrilled with a primary East-West California arterial going right down Main Street either.

Next time you go through look for Cutija's taqueria (looks like a toolshed on the side of the road) and stop there if you want a great burrito. The place looks like the food would give you Montezuma's revenge, but it's actually really clean and the food is awesome (and cheap!).
 
Next time you go through look for Cutija's taqueria (looks like a toolshed on the side of the road) and stop there if you want a great burrito. The place looks like the food would give you Montezuma's revenge, but it's actually really clean and the food is awesome (and cheap!).

Thanks for the tip. I may be passing through in about a month. I'm always checking for good taquerias. MMM, burrito!
 
Next time you go through look for Cutija's taqueria (looks like a toolshed on the side of the road) and stop there if you want a great burrito. The place looks like the food would give you Montezuma's revenge, but it's actually really clean and the food is awesome (and cheap!).

Did I read taqueria? (eekdance). I'm originally from South of the border so I'm immune to those nasty looking things. Very hot salsa and alcohol should kill any bad bug living in those tacos :D

Shame, in the area where I live the closest to a taqueria you get is Taco Hell (Welcome my Brrotherrr!)

Oh, and to keep on the Mazda5 Transmission topic, wife is originally from the Old Continent, so that is one of the reasons why Manual Tranny is a must on any car we own... and the Mazda5 met that criteria (screwy)...
 
Did I read taqueria? (eekdance). I'm originally from South of the border so I'm immune to those nasty looking things. Very hot salsa and alcohol should kill any bad bug living in those tacos :D

Shame, in the area where I live the closest to a taqueria you get is Taco Hell (Welcome my Brrotherrr!)

Oh, and to keep on the Mazda5 Transmission topic, wife is originally from the Old Continent, so that is one of the reasons why Manual Tranny is a must on any car we own... and the Mazda5 met that criteria (screwy)...

My wife had manual tranny cars up until we bought a Subaru Legacy Outback a few years back, then she decided that she was working too hard at driving and that she liked slushboxes.:rolleyes: We sold that car (long story) and she ended up with my '05 Stupidduty F350 crew cab dually diesel 6 speed as her grocery getter/child ferrier. Biggest dang truck you can buy, she absolutely HATED it. Now she doesn't have to drive it anymore. Woohoo for me, no more scraped up dually fenders!(alright) She loves her Mazda5.(kiss)

We have no less than 20 taquerias in our little town of 35k people. Probably 2 out of 3 restaurants in town are some sort of south-of-the-border food, and probably 3 out of 4 of those you wouldn't want to step into if you ever read the inspection reports on the county's health department website. I love me some spicy mexican food, but rarely eat it anymore because there's so dang much of it around. Weird, right?:rolleyes:

Crap, I've gone and hijacked my own post now.
 
Good to know! Thanks!(yupnope)

You can help you and me uot by writing your congressman and telling him to back the plans for the 152 bypass. We Los Banosians aren't too thrilled with a primary East-West California arterial going right down Main Street either.

Next time you go through look for Cutija's taqueria (looks like a toolshed on the side of the road) and stop there if you want a great burrito. The place looks like the food would give you Montezuma's revenge, but it's actually really clean and the food is awesome (and cheap!).

haha, will do. I don't travel through there much anymore. I lived in Santa Rosa for a few years and my folks live in Visalia, so it was a common route I took.
 
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