How does a ????? compare to a P5/MP3/MSP/Protege?

MP3Architect

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Hey guys this thread is for those that wish to explain to the world how a car you own compares to a protege (if you [used to] own one). doesn't matter what car you want to compare it to, just explain to everyone the differences in handling, speed, comfort, etc so that when the rest of us mazda guys are ready to get into a new ride we'll know what to expect in the change.
 
and ill even get this thread started.

car: 2005 Dodge Stratus

experience: I had this car for about a month and a half as my msp was being repaired this time last year. i drove it for a few thousand miles in that time period and all i can really say about going from mp3>msp>stratus is that its fairly slower but most of all its a true boat in the corners. it was just fine as a commuter car as far as performance and was able to get on and off the freeways just fine. it was just the turns i was so used to taking in the msp became impossible in the stratus.


car: 2004 PT Cruiser Grand Touring

experience: this is my mother's car and ive driven it off and on (whenever im working on the msp or when we go somewhere as a family) since she has bought it. she has the fully loaded edition and its pretty nice. the ride is very comfortable and its easy to be above the speed limit without knowing it. my only complaint in her car is the turning radius. its very poor and makes parking very awkward coming from the msp. but it totally makes up for it in the sunroof and tons of cargo room to haul stuff to and from the university.
 
car: 2006 Scion tC

experience: my mom's car as well, i dont like it that much, although the car is comfortable and there is alot of nice accessories and small details (auto down and up windows on both sides!) it just doesnt have the same feeling as my p5, the steering feels numb and heavy (bad combo imo) the throttle is somewhat odd, and the braking has no feel to it. the car is quiet though, too quiet for my taste since i almost tried to start the car again when it was in idle.
 
car: 1990 Honda Accord Sedan

This is my winter/daily driver. I bought it to keep from puttin' so many hard mile on the P5. It is 16+ years old and has a smoother engine, smoother shifter and feels faster than a stock P5. Problem is, the interior on these cars falls apart. The plastic breaks on the door handles and the door trim is just glued on so it comes off. Other than that, it handles reasonably well for a car that isn't as stiff and is old. Freakin' Honda. Oh yeah, and aftermarket parts are waaaaaayyyy cheaper. I found a cat-back for $175 the other day!!!
 
car: 2001 Honda Accord LX (2.3 L)

experience: this car feels like cow on ice compared to the Protege5--a lot of body ROLL. I am a tall guy and can never get comfortable in it as far at steering wheel position and such. I also would not call the interior ergonomic at all compared to the Mazda. As far as acceleration, the car is about the same.

car: 1994 Acura Legend 4dr (3.2 L)

experience: this car hauls ass. This car is a rocket compared to the Protege. It has comparable stiffened up suspension (when new :)), however the steering is much softer, which was a turn-off for me. Otherwise great car.

Those are the points I really care about :D
 
car: 1984 Buick LeSabre Limited (5.0 L)

experience: lol, where do I start. With the V8, considering it is old, the thing is slow as hell. I seriously think the P5 pulls harder. The steering and suspension are soft to the point that I cannot stay in my lane right after I step out of the Protege--it takes some getting used to if you don't drive it for a while! Otherwise very dependable car even considering the age. By no means a "fun" car though.
 
1996 Chrysler Cirrus LXi (V6 model). Fully loaded (leather, power seat, sunroof, OMGHUGE 15" factory alloys, CD player with stock Infinity sound system, etc).

Almost 115K on the odo.

Slow compared to my MSP or my MSM of course, but has power for merging and passing. Steering response is mushy and there is quite a bit of body roll (expected), but handling is much better than you would expect from an American sedan from that time period. The decent handling is actually what helped me enjoy spirited driving on a twisty road. Most of the roads that are on MTMA's current Bucks County Fun Run were discovered while driving this car on the weekends while at college.

Now, it's just my winter beater. Although I kept excellent care of it, and it looks great for its age.
 
Dim said:
car: 1994 Acura Legend 4dr (3.2 L)

experience: this car hauls ass. This car is a rocket compared to the Protege. It has comparable stiffened up suspension (when new :)), however the steering is much softer, which was a turn-off for me. Otherwise great car.

Those are the points I really care about :D


my friend has one of those, except i think its a '93, and it really does haul ass
 
wmbeaver said:
my friend has one of those, except i think its a '93, and it really does haul ass
Haha, thank you for seconding this. So it's not just me. I believe that 93 thru 95 is pretty much the same car with minor tweaks.
 
1996 Infiniti G20: My first car I ever owned before I bought the P5. Understated good looks, SR20DE motor loved to rev and was darn near bulletproof. Much better highway cruiser than the P5. More roll in the corners though. P5 has sportier interior but the G was a comfy place to sit. Acceleration was about qual but the G might have pulled just a tad harder. Handling is P5 all the way. G20 cupholder SUCKED unless you did hte "replace with ford taurus cupholder mod". Oh and boy do I miss those heated side mirrors in the winter. G-UNIT!
 
1997 Toyota Carmy LE v6:
wasnt mine but my dad let me drive it whenever i wanted before i even got my Protege5.
Speed-its a v6 so it had its power but i took awhile for it, i dont think i ever really went too fast though.
Suspension: never really noticed??
Comfortability: Pretty comfy, leather seats were big and cushy.
Reliability- come on!! is that even a question?? Camrys last forever!
 
2005 Hyundai Tiburon SE V6 (6-speed) Fully loaded

Experience: The car rides smooth, brakes well, and is very comfortable all-around. When your tired of driving around the MSP, the Tiburon is a nice car to drive around and cruise the strip. Suspension seems to be softer and not as responsive as the MSP, but with upgrades can be just as nice. Interior is very nice and is much different than the MSP....u sit very low to the ground but at a very comfortable position. Shifting the the 6-speed Tiburon is a trickier with the drive-by-wire, and is hard to shift smoothly under normal driving conditions. Another downside would be the back seat room.....absolutely no leg room what so ever! You cant even put your feet under the front seat to create a bit more room....seats are practically on the floor.

Car Rating: 7

2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer LT - Fully Loaded

Experience: Never really liked the trailblazers, but ill make my parents' the exception. They have theres fully loaded with black leather, DVD/Fold Down Screen, Sunroof, Power everything, Dual climate control, the works......They've added 20" wheels, full exhaust, K&N Intake, TB Spacer, Front Grill. From that, id say the ride is a bit stiffer than stock but is still comfortable. Id take it on a road trip any day of the week. Acceleration is "ok" but doesnt have the grunt like most SUV's ive driven. (Could be the 20" wheels slowing her down) Turning radius on this vehicle is unreal.....seems to be just as good, if not better than the MSP.

SUV rating: 7
 
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CitizenPro said:
Turning radius on this vehicle is unreal.....seems to be just as good, if not better than the MSP.

SUV rating: 7
thier pretty close. msp turning radius is 34.1 with the trailblazer at 36.4inches
 
2006 Ford Five Hundred:
This is my mothers car that I drive ocassionaly, usualy for errands up to the store or short visits to relatives (and considering it's about 20miles to/back to anywhere, it defentaly keeps a couple hundred miles off my protege). I never really liked the car, it's frecking huge in the first place, it takes a while to get used to the extremely touchy steering(which makes it hard to keep in your lane), espically since there's absolutely no feel to it what-so-ever. Even though it's a 203HP 3.0L V6 the transmission in this car makes it feel rather slow, when you step on it, instead of the tranny going through "gears" like it does on my protege the rev line remains at a constant 3K or so until you let off of it(I'm pretty sure it's using that new ATX tranny that gets better mileage than a manual though), and it dosen't feel all that much faster than my 1.8L ATX. The suspension is acceptable, not soft to the point that if you drive over a cow you wouldn't notice a thing, but just right so that its comfortable, yet you still know that you're on the road. The interrior is absolute rubish though, everything is plastic, and it looks like they tried to embeed a carbon-fiber theme into the dash. while It looks like everything would hold up to the test of time, it still feels like something you'd see in a aveo or focus. Braking is fantastic, it's got huge front brakes and rear ones that are about the size of my front disc brakes. you'd only need to tap them @ 60 before you're back down to the teens. infact I have to be carefull, since otherwise stuff in the car goes flying forward. The car's turning abilities are surprising, at least to me, while it's obvisouly not nearly as good as my protege, I can still take the hairpin and 90degree turns at a rather good speed without hearing wheel chirping or feeling through the dead steering wheel any loss of control Turning radius is pretty good too, I think it's 40" or so. Body roll, even with the soft suspension is rather minnimal, noticable when you come out of a corner, but this is a heavy car so in my opinion it was acceptable, Turning radius is pretty good for a car of this size too. The car does get quiet a bit to the tank, but that's partly due to the size of it; 24-25gallons.. I think it's MPG hovers around the low-mid 20s acutaly. Space in the back is fairly average, pretty good if you've got a 5' 10" driver, pretty average if you've got anyone bigger sitting upfront and they want some decent leg-room. Not so much that you'll be cramped.. but not really alot either. Think of it as sitting in coach on a moderatly priced air plane. While we're on airplanes let me mention the steel plated things they put in this car called Seats.. they're so firm it's absolutely ridicilious I can't believe this is supposed to be an acutal car and the seats are this firm.. the car even has 13K worth of break-in and you have to use a good deal amount of force from your fist to get the seats to give a little.. this makes for a rather bad ride for anything long-distance honestly.. that compared with the fact that if feels like you're almost as high up as an SUV make driving just that more difficult. I mean, it'd be one thing if it were just the driver seat.. but it's the passenger seat, and the rear seats, I honestly don't know what they were thinking when they went this way, but it defentaly wasen't for comfort. There was one neat feature I did like about it though, Ford was defentaly thinking about your average consumer when they made this car, it has built-in maintiance reminders into the odometer, so when you pass every 5,000 miles, you get a message when you start your car (for about 5-6 seconds) that it's time to change your oil. It did this for "check transmission fluid, timming belt, and brakes" at 10,000 miles too, so I thought that was nice. Frankly.. and this is a bit odd to say, but the car is acutaly fairly loud too, I don't know what it is, mabye the new ATX tranny or just the engine, but even at low revs you can defentaly hear a good "moan" of that mass-produced V6 that's in front of you, if it were a italian made V8 it'd be one thing, but this is a rather sickly V6 and honestly I don't really like it.

1998 Chrystler Seabring:
This is my friends car, it's seen about 90,000 miles and it shows it. He's been through three re-manufactured 2.5L V6 engines in the past 10,000 alone and the interior is completly falling apart. the power window control panel is destroyed, the driver door plastic molding is cracked in a couple places, half his center controls don't light up, the cd player dosen't work, he's lost power locks, the leather on the seats look very worn. I'm guessing his was one of the higher trim models, as he's got the plastic wood molding on the steering wheel, a couple other places and leather seats, which while comfortable, don't distract from the car's poorer qualities. which include; crappy brakes, he's got 4 disc brakes and my car with front disc/rear drum does the job much better we both agreed and confirmed, after doing a 60-0 stop, I came out a good 4 car legnths behind him(I should mention though, that his car lacks ABS while mine does have ABS), I can't imagine if his car came with rear-drums, anything less than what he has now I'd be willing to almost call dangerous. the car's fat ass makes turning at even moderate speeds a risk of kicking the back out and spinning out of control or chirping the tires(even though the car came with $800 worth of tires.) It's pretty funny when he drives around with me the stuff he'll say when I take corners faster at places where his car would be to the curb. the 2.5L ATX V6 accelerates a bit faster than my 1.8L does(by the time I'm catching up because of my higher top-end it's only 2-3 car legnths really.) but his top end is still acutaly slower and the ride getting and staying there makes it almost not worth it, when you speed in this car, you're fully aware of it. There's not a whole lot of body roll in this car, but it is still noticably more than the ford and my protege, not something I like, but I guess for it's targeted customer it wouldn't be an issue anyway. Steering dosen't have the dead feel of the ford, you can defentaly feel that you're on the road through the wheel, even though the plastic wood. While it is better than the ford, you still can't really feel much when you start to loose traction like in my protege, you feel it when you're power-sliding, but nothing up until that point, unlike my protege. Suspension is a bit softer than my protege and that in combination with the leather seats gives an acceptably comfortable ride, not good, not bad, just, plain. Turning radius is awfull, it's only slightly better than the ford, which when you compare the size of the two cars is pretty sad. It's got huge 16 or 17" stock alloy rims that acutaly look pretty good on the car. Gas milage for his car is somewhat comparable to the ford, he usualy averages about 17-20mpg doing a mix of highway/city.
It's a coupe but still manages to squeeze two seats (if you can call them that.) in the back, enough for your 2.2 kids.. but no where near enough for any medium sized adult.
 
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yeah I drove a Buick Ranier to the Outer Banks this year and the turning radius is unreal. The Ranier is pretty much like a fully loaded Trailblazer, and it was a GREAT road trip car.

2002 Chevy Cavalier LS Sport 4 Door

This is my wife's car. It "feels" slower that the P5, but they are probably about even in that department. Lots of engine noise under acceleration- and it don't sound too pretty either. HORRIBLE body roll on even non-aggressive turns. Hands down has a superior sounding stock stereo system than my car. Cheap interior quality, and seats are not comfotable on any trip longer than 30 minutes. The cavalier OWNS my P5 in any kind of foul weather (read: snow) though.
 
car: 2003 Honda S2000

experience: This car absolutely rocks. Never have I driven a car that is so tightly put together. The suspension, steering, clutch, and shifter might be the best combination ever crafted. As for the comparison the MSP doesn't stand a chance. With all the upgrades the MSP has it might be ever so slightly faster than the S2000 but in the fun category the car is on two different planets. Of course the S2k is about 15k more than the MSP so that has to be taken in account.
 
Notorious said:
car: 2003 Honda S2000

experience: This car absolutely rocks. Never have I driven a car that is so tightly put together. The suspension, steering, clutch, and shifter might be the best combination ever crafted. As for the comparison the MSP doesn't stand a chance. With all the upgrades the MSP has it might be ever so slightly faster than the S2000 but in the fun category the car is on two different planets. Of course the S2k is about 15k more than the MSP so that has to be taken in account.
Awesome. I want to own one some day.
 
parents just got it about a week and a half ago:

2007 Honda Odyssey EX-L

what can i say. its a freaking nice mini-van. ride is incredible. so soft. and the leather seats oh my. it is a van, so it has no performance qualities what so ever. but man, is that thing nice. my sister has a 2006 accord, and i thought that was quiet, but it seems noisy compared to the odyssey.

slowly but surely, my family is making the transition from mazda to hondas. i have to admit i will to, next car looks to be the TL, but i will always keep the p5 as long as its running.
 
2005 (?) Lexus IS-300

Moms car, loved to drive it (though it was only a auto w/ paddle shifters)....the thing handled great and accellerated GREAT, but in the handling department it doesnt even compare to the MSP in my oppinion...Plus RWD FTL (I hate RWD cars, they just dont handle through the turns for s*** imo)....but damn did that thing haul ass...nice interior as well, though the radio was somewhat sub-par, especially for the price range

2007 IS-350

moms new car...havent personally driven it yet, but I must say that that extra .5 liters of displacement certainly turns out a CRAPLOAD of more power....this thing throws you into your seat like NONE other...I cant say anything about its handling though as I havent driven it, but I do wanna note that the interior, while nice, feels a little off...it has a lot of nice accent lighting and such and looks beautiful, but the stereo sucks, the dash material seems really cheap...idk, its a love-hate relationship

of course, with both of these cars they are a different leauge than the msp, so you cant really compare them...but the msp imo definately handles better than the IS300 did

2007 VW Jetta (basic package, 5-speed)
drove my aunts car a few times and wasnt that impressed...it had a little get-up-and-go to it (I got it to break traction very briefly into second) but nothing to write home about. The seats are HORRIBLE...they have absolutely no shape to them, so it's impossible to feel comfortable in them...does it compare to the msp? not at all
 

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