We considered the Mazda for awhile. Had seen them and rented in Europe last fall, 4 banger stick, and was OK. I used to despise everything Mazda and Ford because of the old Mazda pickups we had in our delivery fleet at work. Well 30 years have made a difference. We have a 92 Miata in Sunburst Yellow, same color as the yellow on the 6 and it's been 90K miles of trouble free driving.
After ******* around trying to make up my mind on what to buy, I was in no rush until a guy walked up and bought my old car, leaving us with only 2. Went back to the Mazda store and drove both engines, 4 with auto sucked but the V6 with auto was nice. Controls layout was borderline weird. Car looks nice with body kit junk on it and handled like you would expect from a "4 door sports car".
Anyway, the same weekend found a guy VERY upside down on a 3 month old 03 SE with everything except traction, heated seats and nav. Bought it for 22,500, after a couple of hours behind the wheel.

My impressions of the Max. It's gotten big and heavy compared with the ?86? Max that my brother in law had. Of course the HP has grown with it. Handles good for a WWD ride, normal amount of torque steer etc. I'm not saying the tires are loud, (Potenzas) but my military duece and a half was quiet by comparison. I think the interior in the Max is 2 or 3 cuts above the Mazda 6, but it should be for the higher MSRP. I'm a pretty cheap bastard so spending the extra coins on 91 octane will sting a little, but knowing that once again I've let someone else take the big hit from the dealer can make up a bit.
BTW, we're in our 50's, when my wife drove it and I showed her the tiptronic shift she lit up the tires in first gear, immediatley back off but had a grin like a s**t salesman missing his samples.
slumlord

 

You know I was thinking after reading these posts, the mazda six in japan called the aeri something has euro lights stock, so that means that it's probably going to be avaliable here to the ricers...Which also means that probably more things will be avaliable...It sux how there are more things avaliable to that car then ours...

 

that's because they don't have our styling in Japan..they have the I30 version of Cefiro...the 5th gen style is only meant for the U.S. and Canada.

Mazda 6 is a great car. yes, it's a Mazda and yes it does come with a Ford version of a Duratec V6, but that's because Ford owns great deal of Mazda. it's not the best V6 out there, but it'll do the job.
i just hope Nissan would start spending a little bit more effort and money into car's suspension and paint. those things can really make and breake the car espeically the suspension. it's just ridiculous how much torque steer we have to deal with, when revising the suspension geometry can reduce it or completely get rid of it.

 

I find the looks of the Mazda 6 very, very impressive, and the inside is quite nice as well, reminds me of when the Is300 first came out. I personally though, find Mazda's unreliable, especially their engines.

 

Well there once was a nissan maria, which was a maxima but with a turbocharger..That's not around anymore..It was when the 4th gen was..The IS300? Ahhh you mean the altezza, lol common there's no such thing as acura, infiniti, or lexus! Anyway the toyota altezza is a cool looking sedan, they even have nice body kits! LOL where the hell are those guys at!? They should come n design one for the maxi! Anyway I think the altezza is my next car, or maybe the fairlady z when it comes here this summer...

 

is a Ford engine and therefore will have reliability problems' would do your homework better....nothing flames me more than ignorant opinions.....

The engine on the Mazda 6 is the same 3-liter, DOHC engine that's an option on Taurus SEs and their Mercury kin, tuned to deliver 220 hp instead of the 200 hp on the Tauri.

These dang things are nearly bulletproof...I've seen these engines neglected, oil changed at 20k miles, etc etc and still go for umpty-squat-thousand miles...

Ford cars not so hot but Ford engines are bulletproof....

 

I have had 3 of these so called Bullet proof engines.... I never shot one, but they sure were not immune to burning oil at less than 5K miles on the engine at a rate of 1.5 qt every 1K miles...Ford deemed this normal oil consumption... No more Fords for this guy!

 

Nissan has a higer vehicle rate problem (cars per 100) than Ford does, so they must be doing something right.

 

That may well be true...I know a lot of people who have Nissan and Fords...in my survey...it is very different.

I must say..Ford motor corp treats it's customers 1000000X better than Nissan

 

Yeah...don't remind me.

 

Check this. I bought my '03 SE right after test driving a Mazda6, so I can tell you what I really thought about it. First of all, the thing is made really, really, cheap! I mean Mazdas always used really thin sheet metals, but man, this thing was like an aluminum can! The first thing I did when I walked up to it was to push on the door, and the thing folded in like it was made of Reynold's Wrap. And the interior was nowhere near the Maxima's caliber - cheesy! Oh one other thing, when I went to test drive the 6, it was at the end of December, and Mazda hadn't shipped out the 5spd's yet, so I could only check out the automatic. Still, with 220 hps, you'd think that it would haul butt, but noooooooo! It was a disappointment. Sure, it did hug the road nicely, and it does look much sharper than a '03
SE, as far as sports sedans go. But in terms of overall quality as a driving machine, the thing couldn't hold a candle to the Max. I mean when we walked up to the Mazda dealer and started looking at the 6's, not one salesman came to greet us, and it was the day after X-mas (one of the slowest sales day of the year)! Later, when we finally got ahold of a sales guy, we found out this was because the people who had come in to check out the 6 were all so disappointed with the automatics. Now, how many Maxima buyers were turned off by its automatic version?

 

The Mazda 6 is called Atenza in Japan.

 

My wife likes the car only for the little 'zoom zoom' boy.

Cason, where in AL are you located?

 

Hoover, but I grew up in Decatur. Took a FAST little trip up there last weekend, in fact.

BTW - I are an engineer too.

 

I was just curious as to your location. We're trying to have a monthly luncheon for Huntsville/Madison/nearby members.

 

Let me know dates/times. I doubt I'll be able to come much, but if I happen to be up there maybe I could stop in.