TS

Great family car

I bought this car because I needed a diesel for commuting and although Mazda wasn't my first choice, it turned out to be a good one.
Hatchback body i great - boot access is brilliant and I didn't have any trouble fitting even large boxes in the boot. 4 adults can travel in comfort although if you're tall like me (6 foot +) you'll find front seats less than comfortable on a long journey. Interior is quite nice, certainly better than old jap cars but I don't like the silver plastic that pretends to be aluminium - it tends to creack in sub-zero temperatures.
Handling is superb. It goes around corners very nicely, is predictable and behaves well. You'll get the tyres to squeel and it will still keep to the road!
Admittedly, price for such fine handling is a fairly firm ride for a car of this class.
136PS diesel is enough to shift the car but don't expect it to set the world on fire. 0-60 in about 10sec is what you get but it does 50-70 very quickly and without effort.

Reliability wise the car was fine - up to a point. The CD player is r****** and it eventually died so that was failure on Mazda's part.
As for the rest, it's not even the car that lets you down but modern diesel tech. People are buying diesels without realizing how fragile they are. By 100k EGR was going (400 quid at the dealer) and by 125k injector no1 was on the way out (200 quid a pop and you have to change all 4 as a set). It's not Mazda's fault - all common rail diesels are the same, designed for 120k miles and not much more.

As for the dealership - STAY AWAY! They don't have mechanics, they have fitters, kids from college who do what the computer tells them to do. A Mazda dealer broke my ECU during the major service and failed to spot a dying wheel bearing. Says something about their professionalism, doesn't it?
(btw I tried 2 dealers and experience was about the same. The choice between them was being ripped off or majorly ripper off)

On the whole the car NEVER let me down, despite being driven a lot (over 1000 miles in one day happened quite a few times) and I would buy another one, just maybe not a diesel, unless it was a really low mileage one.

If you're buying used, try to find one that had injectors changed already, preferably along with DMF. EGR is a 50-100 quid on ebay so no sweat. Turbos can fail is previous owner didn't know how to drive a turboed car so you need to check the car cause there is no rule of thumb like "it fails after 100k"

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