I should say I also bought a Toyota truck instead of a Ford because i felt Fords were still overpriced. Like 60-70k for a full size, 4x4 truck with leather? Nah. Those sweet margins though.
But, to be fair to Ford, I am a ricer at heart. I think i’ve owned… 4 Japanese and 2 domestic vehicles. I might one day get a BMW but they’re so ugly, like Tom Cruise in the Last Samurai.
Drove a Ford Probe for most of the 90s. Great-looking car, Mazda reliability, and the name was epic joke fodder.
I really hate that a huge percentage of Americans buy SUVs when they don’t need them. Wasteful and stupid. (No objection if you actually need the sport or utility. Those people do exist, but they’re probably, what, 20% of SUV buyers?)
As a lover of a sedan (Korean btw,) I hate this news. Even more flipping SUVs and trucks everywhere.
Yeah, I have zero interest in an SUV. My wife loves them, as she doesn’t actually like to drive, just wants a comfortable, quiet, ride with good visibility, easy entry, and room to carry crap. As we live on a dirt road anyhow, in a state with goat tracks for roads, an SUV makes sense for her. Me, I like to drive, like manual transmissions in most cases, think small is better, and appreciate a low-slung performance-oriented ride. It’s not just sedans that are an endangered species, it’s small cars that aren’t crap.
In the USA, we equate small with cheap, and thus, most domestic small cars are awful, or if they are dynamically interesting (Fiesta ST, Focus RS), they have terribad interiors and cheap materials throughout. What I really want is a small car with the upscale interior and materials of a, say, Audi, that also has excellent driving dynamics. It’s why my current car is a Golf R, and my last one was GTI. Even greatly improved and objectively nice cars like the new Accords with the 2.0 engine are too freakin’ big; they barely fit in my garage.
Have you driven a Mazda 3 at all? So fun to drive, and some of the best interiors on the market imho.
Back in early 2012 I had one that I put a deposit on, actually, but as it was taking months to cross the Pacific, I started looking around and ended up with a GTI. Which was serendipitous, as I loved that car and it led my to my current Golf R eventually.
The Mazda 3 is a nice looking car with some reasonably nice accouterments in the Grand Touring trim, but it’s anemic and doesn’t have the tight handling and overall athleticism I want in a car.Even the 2.5 engine is giving up a lot of power, and more importantly low-RPM torque, to things like the GTI. At least you can get the 2.5 with a manual and in the top trim level, unlike with Honda.
Mazda overall has lost a lot of its sporting chops over the years. They make good cars, and good looking cars, but since they ditched the Mazdaspeed line and embraced a “slow is good” philosophy I guess, the excitement factor has nosedived. Though if I needed a convertible I’d certainly take a Miata.
Just chiming into say my wife has a 2015 Mazda3 that she absolutely loves. LOVES.
I know a fair number of folks who are very satisfied with 'em as well. If I had to keep it under $30k, it’d be a tough call between a 3 and a low-trim GTI, with the Mazda maybe getting the nod because of features. But once you’re looking at anything more pricey than, say, an Accord or Camry (the new Mazda 6 looks nice in that class), Mazda doesn’t have much, and they have zero in the performance category these days.
Yeah my guess is that the number of buyers of the Mazda Speed line was so small, it wasn’t worth it. Plus the CUV/SUV trend that is going on now. Mazda has said a few times over the last 2-3 years that the CX-5 crossover is their best selling vehicle.
The Mazda dealer here has a bajillion CX-5s, and a handful of everything else.
As a former Mazdaspeed owner, I agree with you on that being a big loss. That being said, there have been rumblings of the line being reintroduced. I guess we will see when we see.
But never throw Mazda under the bus for racing. The Miata line has been a mainstay of track cars in multiple categories and even has it’s own Spec Miata class. You would be hard pressed to find a more economical car to race if you’re into that kind of thing.
Yeah, if I had a third garage slot I’d seriously consider a Miata for my summer car, just because it’s exactly the right sort of slow car.
I actually don’t really care about power and numbers. I care about feel, and it just so happens that nine times out of ten the cars with the right “feel” for me are performance models. Handling, braking, acceleration, “tightness,” and general solidity seem to be hard to find outside of cars that also sport often ludicrous amounts of power.
I have a vendor I frequently work with that races a miata. It really is the poor man’s track car. I’ve sadly never even driven one, they are a bit too small for me to be practical.
My mazdaspeed, however, was a perfect grocery-getter, trip runner and it was blazing fast to boot. It died the death of 1000 cuts (of service work required) as it neared it’s lifetime on a lot of systems. I bailed when the last service was worth more than I could sell the car for.
RIP Red Racer, you were my favorite car.
A late pic from a wash day:
Beautiful car, there! There’s a guy who works at the college in some capacity, physical plant I think, who still has one. I’ve seen it around once or twice. They didn’t age well. Apparently Mazda pushed the envelope a bit beyond where they could really support it. Probably explains why we don’t have Mazdaspeed stuff any more; it’s simply not worth their money for a small company (relatively) to invest in something so few people will buy, and in today’s performance world, you have to be pretty damn good to make a dent in the existing market.
I think that sums it up pretty nicely. I used to frequent a mazda forum and probably the biggest issue was that the cars were designed on the bleeding edge of being able to handle themselves. Any tweaking of a specific system ended up affecting something else. Turbos were some of the big ticket failures, but mine was various other items, one right after another.
And it was just the last year of me driving it when things started, one by one just failing as the weakest link in the chain.
FWIW, my Mazda 6 is the best-handling mid-size sedan I’ve ever driven. When I rent other models (Altimas, Toyotas, Chevies, Fords, etc.) when traveling, they all feel like boats compared to my 2015 6. It’s not a fast 0-60 car, but I don’t care about that. Just handling.
I really want an MX-5 RF, but not sure I want to go that small again. Though when I lived in Vermont I got a Christmas tree home in my 2000 Miata, so really, small is only a limitation if you let it be. :)
I got to drive a Mazda 6 as a loaner several times while my Speed was in the shop. I really dug the exterior design, especially the front of the car. It was quick and nimble too. I did not take well to the navigation of the radio. I actually thought the Mazda 3’s were better in that regard. If I recall correctly the 6 was the one with the rotary button in the center console?
I wonder if this has been changed on the new ones?
Yeah the do it all dial is standard on all models now.
The new 6 is totally new, with a sweet 250 HP engine. Sadly, no manual option. The interior looks very nice, though I keep hearing people saying recent Mazdas suffer from loud cabins and iffy infotainment systems. I don’t have any experience with them though, so it could just be the usual Internet whinging. But in the family sedan space, it’s a good time to buy–the Accord 2.0 models are both reasonably quick/fast and can be luxed out for under forty large (or even less if you ditch some fancy stuff and stick with the good manual tranny; the auto though is a very good 10 speed), and the Camry, if you can dig the polarizing styling, also has a lot to offer. Between the Mazda, the Toyota, and the Accord, it’s no wonder the Fusion is an also ran.
Cabins are quieter than they have ever been for the brand. But yeah the infotainment systems are from 2014, and haven’t changed much. They desperately need apple and android features. I have owned a few different Mazda’s over the past 15 years, so I have kept up pretty well with the models and changes they receive.
Infotainment received a POOR rating.
