So what does one do when your wife’s car is stolen and then held hostage by the tow company?
On top of it, while the 90 Mazda 626 was mechanically in excellent shape driving once to Los Angeles and once to Las Vegas it was cosmetically challenged. Peeling clear coat and then my wife driving on little sleep and bumping into the rear of an F-350 creasing the bumper, the radiator support, the radiator, hood, breaking the grille and glass headlights. I pulled out the radiator support, put a new radiator in, and sourced a hood, bumper cover and headlights from Pick-n-Pull all in one week. Bonus two nice front fenders. Then the car gets stolen and I was not happy. Well, on the bright side I have extra body panels for my 91 626 now. As to my question, the answer is you buy her a new car.
As with my 86 Mazda and 04 Focus I now headed out to find what I wanted. I actually didn’t discuss this with my wife since she would say she wants a red color sports car which is not family realistic. I first go to Ford to look at the Fusion and the base Fusion with the proven 2.5L engine. Wow, is that hard to find in just one example on a lot. Did find one but for the first time no one came out to question me and I couldn’t find anyone to question. Went on line to look and found just a couple spread out over the Bay Area and put out feelers. In the meantime I moved on, not wasting time as she has no car, and peace needs to be maintained because I will hear the “you have nine cars” routine.
I head over to the local Mazda dealer just a few miles away to start. Being a long time Mazda fan I thought I’d look at the 3. Once again the base model in a four door sedan configuration. Car reviews pretty much all say the 2.5L engine is the one to get because of the power. Hmm, my wife has a lead foot so the 2.0L is good enough, besides I test drove a 2.0L Focus in 2004. I want 16″ steel wheels and tires not the 18″ as 16″ tires cost less when replacing and the ride is more forgiving. That came in handy when she got two screws in the tread edge which meant a new tire after 10,000 miles. On the lot the dealer had one car with what I was looking for buried in the back and quite dirty.
A photo of the front suspension? Well when I verified the base model and walked around the car I then laid on the ground and looked under both front and rear. I wanted to see if the front suspension would be easy enough to work on in the future. You know tie rods, control arms, and CV axles. It was so first test passed. At that point I must have drawn the attention of a salesman who came out and asked if I wanted to see the car. Yes, could you open it up for me, which he did.
I sat in the car, looked around, and saw just a small tablet like screen in the middle of the dash. I personally hate those things so I wanted it small and in no way controlling functions of the car like in the Civic. I could give it more capability by getting an SD card at $89-109, but my wife uses her cell phone for Google directions anyway. Radio on console below shifter, some controls on steering wheel and A/C system had standard three dial controls. Seems many Mazdas share the same console. Finally, the materials comprising the seats and carpet don’t come close to the quality and richness of my 91. Fabric seems thin but maybe tougher than it looks. Tapping the carpet sounds like I am tapping carpet topped cardboard.
So I pop the hood release and get out to open the hood and look. This is what I first see. These covers now make sense given those nooks and crannies on the top of engines now that get dirty in them. Focus doesn’t have one so I have to vacuum the top of my engine now and then.
With hood open I now go into the engine compartment with my right hand and arm reaching deep down into it to see if I can access stuff in the future and there is good room. I can tell the salesman is puzzled as I’m sure he doesn’t see buyers like me very often if ever.
Now I want to see the engine sans cover but he says I can’t remove it. Ok, you remove it. He says he can’t and I look at him cross eyed as in why not? Tells me I can go down the street, two miles, to where their service department is to take a look. I then say you want me to drive down there when a car is here? Is that what you are telling me? I’ll tell you what, why don’t I leave and drive two miles the other way to home? He excuses himself and I give him five minutes to figure out what to do and start my stop watch. Before the time is up the manager comes out and he does remove the top for me.
See how easy that was and I am satisfied. He buttons the car back up and we go into the sales office. Now the window sticker says $23,300 before tax and license. I had already reviewed what a base model was and was prepared to see if I could get that down to 18-19K before tax/license fees. I told him the base model was it, no further upgrades will do just fine. I may have liked either a red or blue car but that meant looking all over the Bay Area for such a color and since I did it already I knew it was tough. I wouldn’t pay extra for color anyway because that seems like a scam to me. I also figured that this car had been sitting, many had dismissed the car, and they might want it gone.
Now there was some sort of promotion where there was a $1500 incentive. He also said there was a $500 bonus for being a loyal Mazda owner. They had seen my 91 626 in the lot and I saw it draw attention from all. He is writing all this down as I watch him make his calculations. I let him make an offer first. Just like my 86 Mazda in 1986 his offer isn’t bad. He says how does $18,300 out the door including tax and license. In my county the tax is 8.25% and if you work the numbers you can see I got the car itself for roughly $16,750. So I said deal and will be back in two days with my wife. This car when adjusted for inflation backwards in time cost slightly less than my 2004 Focus at $17,500.
Now does anyone notice what I did not do with buying this car? Next I was aware that this engine is now direct injection and there have been some issues with carbon build up on the valves. I also found out that Mazda was aware of this and had redesigned the cylinder heads water passages to help with the issue even though I haven’t heard it being endemic to Mazda.
Currently the car has 24,000 miles on it after 22 months. I have only driven it twice. The first time the high door window sill bothered me greatly. I used the seat controls to raise the seat which helped some. Nonetheless, I do not like these gun port style side windows and never will. The steering is lighter than the Focus with less road feel sensation but that is me. The Focus seems to have the barest of power assist. I like to make snap lane changes in the Focus and it can do it like a gymnast sticking the landing after a vault. Not many cars can do that with nary an inch of play. Of course unaware passengers, my wife, get whiplash when their head hits the passenger window. Try that in my older cars where you snap left and then bring back quickly would have me across the center divider and then back. My wife doesn’t care for that but the handling is quick and nimble nonetheless. That Focus handling came in to use this past Monday on the freeway with someone not looking.
This car is the 2.0L engine which has decent pep while cruising smoothly and quietly at freeway speeds. I noticed no jarring road issues on city streets the two times but I’m used to a tight suspension as in the Focus. Fit and finish is well done and the car feels solid while light at the same time. Oh, and I am definitely a confirmed manual transmission fellow as shifting is natural for me while constantly braking to slow is not.
Style wise I am not a fan of the front of the car. Seems every car has a big maw for a front end nowadays with a resulting higher hood. I very much prefer the lower profiles on my 91 626 and the 04 Focus. It also makes it easier for me to know where my two front corners are. Example the 626 front, below, is so much more attractive to my eye.
My first oil change, by me, forced me to go out and buy a filter wrench to remove the filter as it was on that tight. I had three in my tool chest and they were all too big. The car is washed every two weeks and is blow dried to prevent swirl marks. Currently experimenting with Turtle Wax ICE Seal and Shine along with ICE Spray Wax. The stuff goes on so easy, then wiped with microfiber clothes that even if I did it every quarter I wouldn’t mind it a bit. Oh, my wife has no complaints and is always in a nice shiny car. However, I do miss the 90 626 sedan especially after all the work getting it to spec. It to rode very well for an automatic. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to paint it and install the backup hood and bumper cover.
Oh, one final irony about that stolen 626. I wasn’t paying $750 to get the car out, after the ignition broken into, so they usually would try to sell it and they did. About two months after that there was a message on my answering machine at my office. It was the new owner calling me and asking me if I could fix the brakes. Chutzpah!
We have a 2015 hatchback. I know it’s said the 2.0 cars don’t have much power, but this car is plenty fast enough for me in most situations, certainly faster than anything I’ve had in the last 30 plus years. The base model you bought has the much more comfortable cloth upholstery, and has the three easy to operate 3 dial HVAC controls, which I wish our car had, but my s/o wanted a car with pleather and a moonroof. It’s been a very good car over 5+ years and 57K miles. While I’d buy a Mazda again, I think maybe we might get something a little taller next time.
Good luck with your new car.
I am right there with you in not being willing to take an answer you just know a salesman made up on the spot because he didn’t want to do something. Good for pushing back.
I am kind of amazed that in this day and age it is still possible go find a car for the Mrs and then say “here, I picked this one out for you.” I once thought that might be possible in my own life, until I learned that my Mrs. had likes and dislikes when it came to cars too. Maybe the secret is being the personal valet who keeps it perfectly cleaned, shined and maintained. I do number 3, but am usually too busy to handle 1 or 2.
Hmm… maybe I’ll try that and see how it works out! “Honey, I bought you this Dodge Challenger today! Love it??”
My dad tried that with my mom in 1986 and it didn’t go so well. Mom had a dreadful six-year-old Subaru at that time, which she loathed, and Dad thought he’d surprise her with a new car, so he bought her a new Toyota Celica ST. Mom flipped out and screamed at him — that wasn’t a fun day in our household. Dad had to return it to the Toyota dealership. Years later, mom admitted that she really liked the car, but was just grumpy (to put it mildly) that dad didn’t consult her.
My father surprised my mother with a 1955 Nash. That didn’t go so well either. Even worse, it was unreliable. More salt in the wound.
My father did that once. Took my mom’s beloved Civic sedan and traded it on a Saturn Ion. She was not amused, to put it lightly. I’ve never seen her that annoyed/angry with him in their later years. This would end up as her last car.
I can’t even remotely imagine trying that with Stephanie.
This all amuses me, because if my dear departed mum HAD been consulted about a car, she’d have got pretty bloody annoyed.
She cared so little about cars that she more than once tried to get into the wrong one, because, as she said defensively on one of the occasions, “Well, it was red, and a Holden.”
The fact “it” was a wee Euro-sourced hatch and hers a big old crappy Aus Commodore had, for lack of giving a shit, passed her by.
JP it is very much your perspective from where you originate from. My wife was born in the Philippines in 1979 up in the mountains east of Manila. To imagine this location think the Appalachia’s back in the 60s when RFK went through them. Poor, very poor. Two meals a days is the most to expect. Go out into the forest to pick vegetables and fruits. Cook rice, and maybe have fish now and then, as meat was expensive. Candle light, haul water from a river, and wash clothes down by the river on a rock. Walk a couple of miles through jungle for elemantary school. Work all through high school because high school costs money in the Philippines.Get out at 16 with very little in the future.
I’ve seen how she lived between 18-22. Small room, concrete floor, concrete counter, and squat toilet. This was fancy compared to her brother in the hills with dirt floor, block wall and corrugate steel roof which blows off in every typhoon. Today isn’t a whole lot better as prices have increased with no increase in pay or job opportunities. She sends money every month to help support three families.
Given that she tends to be practical and simple. She is happy with a simple life. She has never had a new car and knows how I am about also being practical and in seeking value. Now being practical I had the choice of listening to I have no car every day or you didn’t consult me for half a day. It is a no brainer. I do consult her when it comes to her one luxury which is 14K gold earings given her skin reaction to lower grades. I absolutely suck when it comes to that and hate going into a store when I know nothing. She tells me to go to a pawn shop!
Ha! I get it. My former partner was from a tiny Pacific island nation. Loved to get the car to be cleaned if it had shiny wheels or some chrome, otherwise, quite happy to drive in anything I got. Also not much interested in Stuff. Except to give away, even if when needed it, he sighed. A very good heart.
I’ve bought my wife lots of cars without her involvement and I can’t say it has ever ended badly.
When we were younger it was because for years I’d been fixing and flipping cars so when she came into the picture she got some of those to drive for 6-18 months. How long it was kept was not necessarily proportional to how much she liked it. Often she would be unhappy when I told her it was time to sell it while I could still sell it for at least what I had into it.
Eventually with kids coming along I didn’t have time to do that as much as well as hauling kids meant I wanted her to be in newer vehicles.
In recent years I’ve bought her a couple of cars w/o her input starting when she totaled her fairly well equipped Fusion Hybrid. She kept refusing to actively shop, and kept insisting she didn’t “need” this or that and didn’t want to spend “that” much. So after a couple of months of that I ran across an Escape Hybrid at the state auction, went and checked it out and placed a bid. So the first time she saw it, other than online, was when I brought it home. She actually liked it a lot and it converted her from being a die hard sedan driver.
Then she wrecked that one it was when my busy season was about to start, so again I went online, found a C-Max Hybrid closing in a couple of days, checked it out the next day and again the first time she saw it was when I brought it home. (I did park the Escape off to the side, repaired it once I had the time and used it as my daily driver for about a year before trading it in on a car for me)
Her current ride is a C-Max Energi and color was a big point in my selection of it. She was finally getting tired of driving a base car, didn’t really like the silver and always pointed out the ones in Blue Candy. Her mother really needed a new daily driver and had been commenting on how my wife’s current car was the perfect height for her to get in and out of. I wanted one with a plug to see how it well she would adapt to it, in anticipation of buying a new car with a plug in the future. I searched until I found the exact one, went and took it for a drive cut a deal contingent on her approval. She was quite happy because I knew what she really wanted even if she claimed she didn’t “need” it and my MIL was also happy when we gave the old one to her.
A fine example of an worthy alternative to borrowing a lot of money to purchase a vehicle that you don’t need.
I have been keeping a third vehicle under a plastic sheet. From your experience is there anything I should know about this that I probably don’t know?
Very strange the salesman wouldn’t let you pop off the engine cover, they are designed for repeated quick removal and install. It’s not as if you asked to remove the interior door panel.
Good read, and a unique perspective. This is as much a review of modern cars compared to older cars as it is of the Mazda itself. Greenhouses have been shrinking consistently cm by cm so even if you notice the poor sight lines it doesn’t come as the outright shock that it does if you’ve just stepped out of a MY 1990. Electric power steering has made us forget about road feel year by year, even in better ones like this 3. We’ve become accustomed to cheap scratchy carpets and seat fabrics and forget that cloth used to feel nice.
Good review — I like these cars a lot, though the high windowline might just be enough to keep me away from purchasing one. Oh, and I agree about the depressing-looking and feeling upholstery on many new cars.
I know how tough it is to find cars in dealer stock that aren’t loaded with options. In all of my recent car-buying experiences, I’ve had similar stories of there being just one or two of the type of model I’m interested in, within 100 or 200 miles of home. But when the dealer has to haul the car out from the back of the lot where it’s sat unnoticed by customers for months, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get a good deal. For an $18,300 out-the-door price, this was an outstanding deal.
“For an $18,300 out-the-door price, this was an outstanding deal.”
It absolutely was. My wife’s current car was purchased for a solid 3 grand below its KBB value on the used market and that was immensely satisfying.
I know what you mean by satisfying. Two years ago, right after we bought our new Sedona minivan for $22,000 (out-the-door price but not including tax), I saw equivalent used Sedonas advertised for more than what we paid. Very satisfying indeed.
This post took me back to my beloved ’89 Mazda Protege. I bought it used with 79,000 miles on it for $1600 in…1994? I don’t recall the exact year, but sometime around then.
Twin cam, 102 hp, 5-speed, a/c, sunroof, black with grey interior.
We drove it until one day it was only running on 3 cylinders. I’ve seldom been sadder to see a car go out on a tow truck to oblivion.
Bunker windows are dreadful things, but I’m afraid unavoidable past a certain newness of design. I just did all the buying for my niece of new Mitsubishi SUV thing – honestly, right now I cannot remember the model name, no kidding – and it was excellent value, well-warrantied, and quite ok to be in for the uses of a mum and three kidlets.
But for gawd’s sake, upon driving it, here am I, all up high for the SUV benefit of access and view and all that, and I could out see less than I could from the ’05 trade-in Corolla. Arghhh!
My presumption, for the speculative little it is worth, is not that designers are lazy. It is that the utterly spectacular momentary forces to be absorbed by the cabin in crash testing dictates the rising beltlines and whopper C-pillars that are so prevalent, and necessary in a way engineering has not yet been able to get round. (For clarity, I absolutely support the safety advance these structures offer).
Say, I must defend the looks of your Mazda. The company is currently in a sweet period for style, including this, and that’s something that’s not at all a given in the industry presently. And I’ve got to be honest that, though I’m not a modern maw-lover either, the front of those 626’s was always a bit of a zipped-up uptight-mouth non-face, (to incompetently complete the analogy).
Nice writeup. I’ve owned four Mazda’s and enjoyed all of them, but the gunslit windows drive me crazy. Even simple things like swiping a badge at the office parking lot gate becomes difficult. I was always hitting my head with my Mazda6. As a result I didn’t even look at Mazdas when I bought my GTI this summer.
My GF has a 3i
I have a 3s
I am very happy I got the bigger motor. Like your wife I have a lead foot. The 2.5 models get larger front rotors so I am less likely to melt my pads and “warp” my rotors
I own three ’90s vehicles and prefer most ’90s designs over today’s ‘organic, angry-fish’ look.
I also detest touch-screens!
Happy Motoring, Mark