mp3's are GREAT cars to drive. i just sold mine last month, but i miss her everyday. upgraded to a mazdaspeed though so i get the same great handling only with more speed. heres an email i had sent to a guy that almost bought mine, but another guy got it before he was able to.
there are only a few problems with pretty much all mp3's...................most
minor. the endlinks to the swaybar is the first problem. they will go bad probably once a year or every other year. once they do they make a very loud clunk noise everytime you hit a bump. sounds as if something is loose in the trunk. not really a big deal, more of just an annoyance. this problem is known by all mp3 owners as "the klunk". replacement bushings only cost $36 from dealer though so its sort of just a maintnance thing. The next delima is the air conditioning control unit. goes out on every mp3. its the electric unit that controls the a/c (the knobs). that one went out on me too (as well as almost every protege of that year) and i think the replacement was $85. The only major thing is the transmission. I haven't heard of anyone breaking thiers (unless they were WAY overpowering the tranny beyond what it was designed to do(example: 350hp). however it does tend to grind from time to time in 3rd gear. it would try to do it on me about once a month. but after i got the hang of it i could feel whenever it was about to grind and would baby it and prevent it from grinding. but ive never heard of any major problems resultingfrom it. as far as reliability.........i haven't known too many mp3's with more miles than me but i knew of some proteges hitting almost 200,000 miles without any major problems.just normal wear things. so the engines are pretty reliable. now there are plentyof people who break them. but those people are turboing the car and turning up theboost to a point beyond what the stock internals can go. these cars can only safelygo around 250hp before you'll need to upgrade the pistons, etc. as far as handling,the only car ive EVER driven in my life that was close was a new corvette a few months ago. over the past 2 years i have driven my mp3 or my mazdaspeed (same suspension)every day. now that my mp3 is gone and my mazdaspeed is in for repairs (i wreckedit) i am left with a stratus as a rental. its total night and day with the differenceof driving. i actually feel sort of unsafe taking turns in the stratus because forthe last 2 years ive had total control in almost every turn. theres really no comparison.and the suspenion isn't just for racing. its saved me from plenty of would have been accidents by being able to swerve much better than any other car on the road.the handling is trully top notch. if you have any other questions feel free to ask.
