Looking to a used buy a mazda 2 and need some input

[hot_hatch_guy]

*** Sorry Guys I Posted this in the wrong fourm.. could a moderation move it to the Lounge and Welcome area... ***

Hi everyone!

My name is Adam, and on monday i'm looking at possibly buying a 2. I've done a ton of reading on this site and have learned alot about the car. I really like what I hear! All of my cars from the age of 16-32 have generally been small fun import cars. To give you a short list I've owned a 2xpontiac fireflys(suzuki) 8 x ford festivas( mazda 121 ) 2 x 4th gen civics and 2x 5th gen tercels ......so on and so forth. At one time I owned the fastest ford festiva in North America... it had a B6T and ran 13.3 in the 1/4 mile.... that record has long been beaten..

As you can tell from my very short list of cars i've owned and loved I think the mazda 2 will be a great fit for me..... however 3 years ago I got married to a wonderful girl who never drove manual. She did learn to drive my 99 tercel 5spd and did quite well, but shortly after learning she stalled out the car like 5 times at a major intersetion backing up traffic and ever since has not wanted to drive a manual.

3 years ago we bought a 02 Suzuki Aerio that we use as our only car. I personally really like the car. It has that gokart feel like my other cars, but we bought an auto for her... so that's a real bummer

The other week a freind bought a I belive a 05ish mazda 3 5speed. I took it for a drive and was not overly impressed by the power, but was blown away by how smooth the clutch was in the car! My tercel and festivas where very easy as well, but very crude in comparison the the clutch in the 3. I felt after driving that car that my wife might injoy driving standard if a car had a clutch pedal feel like that. The down side is it seems that mazdas weak spot in the 3's is RUST! Up here in ontario i'm seeing 5 year old 3's with major rust... So I passed off the idea of buying a 3.

However I came across a real nice black 5speed mazda 2 the other day and decided to look further into the possibility of mazda again.

So after all that long winded background.... here are my questions:

1. I know the shifter feel is great in the 2.... but is the clutch very easy to use like the 3?( for people like my wife) or is it more agressive like the old honda civic's?
2. Are there any indications that rust issues will not be as bad in the 2 as in previous mazdas?
3. I will be taking it for a test drive on this monday... is there anything on or in the 2 that I should check out or really examine? ( the car is a 2011 with 100k)

I really hope it will work out, any input would be great! It's nice to see there is a good community here behind these cars... I had that when I had my ford festiva...fordfestiva.com one of the best car fourms on the net also the same with the tercel board..... then I bought my Aerio.... and there's almost no current comunity... the fourms are quickly going dead.

I hope this car will work for us! Let me know what you think!

Thanks in advance!

 

[mykflo]

From your cars list.. i think you would love the 2.

I love the shifter but some people complain about its unfriendly 1st gear so your wife may not like it but all it takes is practice.

That's a lot of miles for a 2011. The price better be low. Remember, the new mazda2 is coming out soon so if you wait you might be able to snag a good deal on a 2014 model.. Some people here have gotten brand new for around 13k. I got mine for about 16k at 0% financing payments around 270 a month. Right now is the time dealerships are trying to dump inventory.

 

[flatlander937]

A firmer rear motor mount makes a huge difference in taking off in first gear. I had an 09 Mazda3 2.0l and the clutch feels similar in release height, but a bit lighter overall in pressure needed to depress it. The motor mount is the biggest problem on the 2 since its low on torque, you start releasing the clutch, engine moves 1.5in and bottoms on the mount, which makes it feel like it wants to bog down.

Not sure on rust, mine is a Florida car with none, now it Ohio so it will be exposed to some hell this winter. I plan on covering the underside with ATF to ward off some rust. All Mazdas are bad about the hose clamps rusting and small fasteners too, just keep an eye on those. The skid plate on my Mazda3 was horrible due to all the rusty fasteners.


If that is 100k kilometers, that's only about 60k miles, not bad. These are very reliable cars, I work on all makes and I've only had one once with a failed key FOB, not the end of the world. Mine has some light oil seepage from the timing cover, I'm not worried about it, mine has 50k on it now, no drips formed, I'll reseal it whenever I pull the engine+trans for a clutch install. Its not needed to pull both, but I like doing that for Minis and other small cars, the lack of a forward subframe makes it easy to pull everything straight out, either down or pull the core support and take it out the front of the car.

 

[genericmoniker]

I've got a 2011, from the west end GTA, and don't see any rust on the body, and very little on the underside. Though, I do get my car krown'd annually. At 100k, I'd imagine it'd be fairly cheap. I've got 60k on mine, and even that seems fairly extensive in comparison to a few other members on here, so not really sure what to look for as far as mechanical maintenance.

 

[FreedomFries]

japanese dealers in japan can export to canada. http://www.tradecarview.com ...

you should recognise your countries laws to do with car importing and they could vary.