Quote Originally Posted by Koronin View Post
Irulan, when it gets closer to when we can actually afford to to make a purchase, I'd love to see what all you like/dislike about yours. Nothing is better than actually talking with someone who owns a vehicle (even if it's a different year).
You can see what I said about my '06 3s 5 door, upthread. There are things we love about our 3 ("zoom-zoom", height-adjustable seat, the way it fits my 6'2" hubby and <5'4" me equally well, wonderful manual transmission) and things we don't love (really low-rent sheet metal, continuous CEL since about 55k miles, mediocre gas mileage for a car of its size). When it comes time to buy our next car we'd still look at Mazda, but going back to Ford or Honda are also likely options. We've had better luck with those 2 brands than we've had with our Mazdas (which is saying something, since our Mazdas have served us fairly well, really).