This may not be the best time for me to answer this poll, since I've just been told by my dealer that my 2006 Mazda 5 with 77000 miles needs a new engine. I am really torn. Back in 2006 I loved the Mazda 6 wagon, but it was a bit expensive. When I learned the Mazda 5 came with a manual, I fell in love with it. All the other auto makers offer a people hauler like this everywhere else in the world, but only Mazda had the guts to bring it to North America AND offer it with a stick. It drove really nice, had enough zoom-zoom. I raved about the 5, on and off forum, even supported it against it's well-documented shortcomings. I even got one of my close friends to buy one. All seemed right with the world.
Six years into it, however, I started having concerns... It just didn't seem like it was going to hold up for the long term. The upholstery started to fray, the paint on the hood and the roof was showing age... the headlamps were starting to yellow. Some wear and tear seemed unavoidable, especially parked out in the Southern California sun... but I was having doubts, especially since some of my other long-term cars seemed to hold up better with age and mileage under the same conditions. Still, I thought, with some TLC, I could get another 6 years from it.
Then came an issue with some ticking coming from the engine. The dealer has diagnosed this as a bad rod at the rear of the engine, and that the only fix was to replace the engine. They were able to say this with a straight face... This from the same dealer I bought the car from new, and religiously had my regular maintenance done.
There have been other things too... like many others, I was not happy with the "smiley-face" design of the later models. I thought the redesign of the Mazda 6 was a big mis-step, as was dropping the wagon variant (which you could still get in other countries). They seemed to focus too much on SUV's (without manual trans), and not enough on the rest of the lineup... too much focus on "americanizing" the lineup. The 2012 Mazda 5 seemed to signal a turn-around. Cleaner design, a number of improvements over the earlier models (although still the same basic platform), but are the new ones any better? Where the manual trans was a variant available on all models, now it's only available on the bottom-of-the-line with only 16" rims instead of the 17". The CX-5 looks good, and seems to be everything the CX-7 should have been to begin with. And the pictures of the new Mazda 6 look really great (but I'm sure we're not going to get the new wagon variant here in the States...)
As one other post noted... I thing the number of "no" votes is going to be a bit skewed because usually those of us who post really love their Mazdas... and those that don't, or had a bad experience, tend to just fade away. I don't want to say "no", but as of right now... I can't really say yes.
Six years into it, however, I started having concerns... It just didn't seem like it was going to hold up for the long term. The upholstery started to fray, the paint on the hood and the roof was showing age... the headlamps were starting to yellow. Some wear and tear seemed unavoidable, especially parked out in the Southern California sun... but I was having doubts, especially since some of my other long-term cars seemed to hold up better with age and mileage under the same conditions. Still, I thought, with some TLC, I could get another 6 years from it.
Then came an issue with some ticking coming from the engine. The dealer has diagnosed this as a bad rod at the rear of the engine, and that the only fix was to replace the engine. They were able to say this with a straight face... This from the same dealer I bought the car from new, and religiously had my regular maintenance done.
There have been other things too... like many others, I was not happy with the "smiley-face" design of the later models. I thought the redesign of the Mazda 6 was a big mis-step, as was dropping the wagon variant (which you could still get in other countries). They seemed to focus too much on SUV's (without manual trans), and not enough on the rest of the lineup... too much focus on "americanizing" the lineup. The 2012 Mazda 5 seemed to signal a turn-around. Cleaner design, a number of improvements over the earlier models (although still the same basic platform), but are the new ones any better? Where the manual trans was a variant available on all models, now it's only available on the bottom-of-the-line with only 16" rims instead of the 17". The CX-5 looks good, and seems to be everything the CX-7 should have been to begin with. And the pictures of the new Mazda 6 look really great (but I'm sure we're not going to get the new wagon variant here in the States...)
As one other post noted... I thing the number of "no" votes is going to be a bit skewed because usually those of us who post really love their Mazdas... and those that don't, or had a bad experience, tend to just fade away. I don't want to say "no", but as of right now... I can't really say yes.
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