I'm looking at a cheap car to replace my Volvo 945T and get me through the next couple years. I drive a lot for work and carry some decent sized objects so the Protege' 5 naturally fits the bill. Does anyone have anything to add about these cars? I drove one a while back and seemed really zippy...sorta Miata like. I'm not looking to add crazy power but how well would some left-over MazdaSpeed turbo bits work?
they're kinda like a fwd miata wagon. around here decent ones go for 6-8k. be sure to get a 5-speed though, they're alreadyif your budget has the stretch, you could pick up an early 3 hatch for a couple grand more that will have more power for hauling when fully loaded.
Mazdaspeed Protege parts are bolt on... Engine mounts like to go bad
If you search, they come up pretty often, and I know there have been some pretty useful threads
Love my P-5!! 113,000 trouble free miles. one alternator, one airbag light (fixed under warrenty), two sets of brake pads and the aformentioned motor mounts (half covered under extended warrenty). stock clutch, returns approx 30 MPG in mixed driving (all done hard).
It really fits more in the back then you can possibly imagine.... until you start packing it you don't realize how useful it is!
littleturquoiseb wrote: Love my P-5!! 113,000 trouble free miles. one alternator, one airbag light (fixed under warrenty), two sets of brake pads and the aformentioned motor mounts (half covered under extended warrenty). stock clutch, returns approx 30 MPG in mixed driving (all done hard). It really fits more in the back then you can possibly imagine.... until you start packing it you don't realize how useful it is!
(I also own one, forgot to mention).
I do love the packing, you should see the jaws drop with what I can fit in the back...
I can't beat 25 mpg for a tank :(, but need to do some tuning up once I get a nice saturday, that will hopefully bring that up a bit
I'm usually around 28-30MPG, I do a long commute (30 miles) on a bunch of back roads up and down hills, light traffic. When gas was $4.00 a gallon I'd do alot more coasting and easily bumped my average to 30 - 32.
BTW at 113K I have yet to do plugs or any other tune up items (I know I should, but I have a BA/BE car to prep!)
davidjs wrote:littleturquoiseb wrote: Love my P-5!! 113,000 trouble free miles. one alternator, one airbag light (fixed under warrenty), two sets of brake pads and the aformentioned motor mounts (half covered under extended warrenty). stock clutch, returns approx 30 MPG in mixed driving (all done hard). It really fits more in the back then you can possibly imagine.... until you start packing it you don't realize how useful it is!(I also own one, forgot to mention). I do love the packing, you should see the jaws drop with what I can fit in the back... I can't beat 25 mpg for a tank :(, but need to do some tuning up once I get a nice saturday, that will hopefully bring that up a bit
The packing is going to be the key with the stuff that I have to haul around. So it appears that they're pretty decent little cars. I've also considered the 3, but then I start looking at the Speed3 and then my idea of a "cheap" car spirals out the window.
25 mpg is still better than I ever see in the Brick. I'm lucky if I get 22 mpg on premium. With the amount of driving that I'm doing it starts to add up.
I must say, my first thoughts were that, yes, the P5 is a great car but going from a 945 to a P5 is quite the size difference. It is not that I am trying to take away from the P5 but rather pointing out that the 945 is cavernous. I expect that this will be quite the size compromise.
jrw1621 wrote: I must say, my first thoughts were that, yes, the P5 is a great car but going from a 945 to a P5 is quite the size difference. It is not that I am trying to take away from the P5 but rather pointing out that the 945 is cavernous. I expect that this will be quite the size compromise.
Yeah, it's space that I'm not fully using. The only time I filled up the Volvo completely was when I took everything I owned and drove across the country. The things that I'm carrying would probably fill the back of the P5, but it should be more than adequate for my needs.
We had one and wasn't a full sized wagon but did it's job. We only had it for 3 years until we ran out of room with kids. Traded it in for an Odyssey. We like it. Like someone said zippy, redline is low for me, good power, and good mpg.
littleturquoiseb wrote: It really fits more in the back then you can possibly imagine.... until you start packing it you don't realize how useful it is!
Show 'em the pics!
I had one for about a year back in 2003-2004. Decent little car, I really like the styling and interior, though the materials are on the cheap side. Very good steering feel, but I took it autocrossing once and it was an understeering pig. Not enough negative camber, I suspect. Power is.. well.. econobox-like. It'll get out of it's own way, but that's about it. Like others, I never got much more than 28mpg in mine, and I tend to get on the high side of average mileage in most cars. It will hold a decent amount of stuff, but it's still a small car and the laws of physics do apply.
That car is part of what made me a 6-cylinder convert. Both my old SVT Contour and my current E46 get pretty similar mileage but with much more power. A worthy tradeoff, in my book.
Overall, not a bad little car. Nice looking and decent to drive, but if I was looking in that market I'd probably try to find a 5-door Focus. Better suspension geometry and more aftermarket support.
I just bought one for my wife tonight. It needs tires. I would also like a second set of autox wheels and tires. Can anyone recomend a size for autox? 16x7 rims.
Nice little car - we messed with Proteges for a while. We had a decent turbo system for them, but the engine is not Miata-strong. 8 psi it would take, 10 would pop it every time. Interesting note about Protege owners: when we tell a Miata customer their engine is safe at 8 psi, they'll leave it at 8 psi and drive for the next decade with a big smile on their face. Tell a Protege owner the engine is safe at 8, it'll be set at 9 the next weekend, then 10, then there will be engine parts all over the road.
I don't think a single one of those kits is still running except for the car we owned.
We put a B&G suspension on our P5, and the car really worked well. The car's a compact wagon, but a good one. I'd call it a good successor to the GTX in a lot of ways, and surprisingly close in interior size from what I remember.
If I had one, I'd leave the engine unboosted. And I'd call Bill at Flyin' Miata and see how cheap he'd be willing to sell one of the leftover stainless exhaust systems for - they've been sitting on the shelf for five years. Top quality stuff, but with the crap on eBay we can't sell 'em for our cost.
I recently traded mine in for a MKV GTi. I had mine for 5 years and 72k miles. Aside from regular maintenance it had a master cylinder and a few coil packs replaced. It got 27 MPG average with me driving the crap out of it. Intake, header, gutted cats, lowered, short shifter, poly shift bushings. It was all sorts of fun.
I had solid motor mounts in it for a while. 100% improvement in driving experience, 10,000% more noise and vibration. They got rid of the ridiculous drivetrain lash but idle with the AC on was unbearable.
Look for rust. Mine was well taken care of and still had the beginnings of rust in the rear wheel wells and under the hatch. The rust was really the only reason I traded it in.
I also took my intake manifold apart and removed all those little flaps and crap. Some cars like to swallow the screws usually killing the motor. Nothing changed after I took them out, I don't think they do anything.
P5's are great cars. I worked for the local Mazda dealer when they first came out, we never saw any real problems with them and I hated to see them end production. The body lives on as the KIA Spectra 5, only now it has a Hyundai engine and Korean interior.
The flaps and stuff mentioned above were called 'tumble valves' and when the engine was cold they directed air differently for some stupid reason or other. We never had any come apart, but the air flow would make a resonance noise very much like an internal engine knock under the right ambient temperature conditions.
I had an '03 Protege that I drove for 3-years & about 115kmi. It was an OK car, but honestly I was disappointed in it compared to how people rave about them. I found the engine to be pretty thrashy & I found it to neither have that much torque or be much of a rev-monster either. I didn't care much for the seats, shifter, or the way it ate through stock end-links & motor mounts.
I eventually swapped in one of the Tokico suspension kits, swapped swaybars, end-links, motor-mounts, put on a filter & started running STS. What I ended up with was a car that rode much worse for daily driving, made much more noise, wasn't any more fun to drive on highway trips(which is most of my work driving), and still wasn't very fun at autox.
It was reliable, I had no problems other than motor-mounts & end-links, thought I too was starting to get some rust that seemed worriesome. I just never really liked the car.
By searching around, tokico illumina's seem to be the best shock option. Anyone seen anything better? What size tires can I run? I can get a deal on some 245/45/16 R888's, but I would be surprised if they fit.
Jensenman wrote: The flaps and stuff mentioned above were called 'tumble valves' and when the engine was cold they directed air differently for some stupid reason or other. We never had any come apart, but the air flow would make a resonance noise very much like an internal engine knock under the right ambient temperature conditions.
On the Miata, that system is called VTCS and it's used on the 2001-05 models. The idea is that it adds turbulence on cold start to improve emissions. I think there was a recall and reflash of the ECUs to sort them out on the P5.
Yeah, there was a reflash to lessen but not totally eliminate the noise. The noise didn't hurt anything but customers complained.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts of our 2k3 protege. Ours ate the intake screws after an auto-x. (at idle, thankfully, not at 5000rpm mid auto-x!) It's been an entirely uneventful car, but I don't like the fact that our (13 year older with double the mileage!) e30 feels more solid. I think thats entirely due to the fact that the Pro needs endlinks. Again.
petegossett wrote: I had an '03 Protege that I drove for 3-years & about 115kmi. It was an OK car, but honestly I was disappointed in it compared to how people rave about them. I found the engine to be pretty thrashy & I found it to neither have that much torque or be much of a rev-monster either. I didn't care much for the seats, shifter, or the way it ate through stock end-links & motor mounts. I eventually swapped in one of the Tokico suspension kits, swapped swaybars, end-links, motor-mounts, put on a filter & started running STS. What I ended up with was a car that rode much worse for daily driving, made much more noise, wasn't any more fun to drive on highway trips(which is most of my work driving), and still wasn't very fun at autox. It was reliable, I had no problems other than motor-mounts & end-links, thought I too was starting to get some rust that seemed worriesome. I just never really liked the car.
I finally took one for a test drive and it was decently fun but the lack of power was aggravating....REALLY SLOW! Plus, the next day I found a nice, unmolested (a unicorn?) Integra GSR sedan for half the cost. One trip to 8K rpm and I was sold. I'm giving up space but my boss agreed to let me use his Pilot when I have larger items to carry. Done and done.
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