Originally Posted By: AuthorEditor
Quote:
I think Mazda's are all fine except for the fact their bodies are just horrid in the salted areas.
I haven't noticed anything unusual in this regard on Mazdas around here, and this is salt territory. Wish there was some way of comparing rust resistance of various brands/models, because that is an important factor to me.
Just Google Mazda rust problems.
My friend traded in his 2002 Protege5, the rust was starting to consume the whole car. At just 9 years old when he traded it in, (On a Toyota Matrix) it was starting to become unsafe to drive, rotten strut towers, rear brakes were seized and the e-brake cable had been broken for years because of the rust, wheel arches almost non existent, rear hatch rusted badly, horn even stopped working because the ground was pure rust. We had to grind it off and replace the ground strap to get it working. I told him it was time to get rid of it as it was starting to become very sketchy to work on, not to mention a challenge. He traded in the car in 2011 and got $900 for it, with only about 150K KM, the body was just a mess, I can honestly assume the car just went for scrap after they probably yanked the engine/trans for parts.
BEWARE.