Mazda 6 Review

Ok, I was in Virginia and Maryland this week and had the opportunity to drive a Mazda 6 around for a week. Ending up putting about 600-700 miles on it. Figure I would continue my series of reviewing my rental cars. If you missed any I have taken a shot at giving my thoughts on a Ford Focus, Pontiac G6 and a Pontiac Vibe....

The Mazda 6 looks good (very much like the G6, in fact I have a hard time telling which is which sometimes). I had a base model I guess, cloth interior, single CD sound system, manual climate control ect. First impression was that it was a pretty nice car on the inside as well. Seats are better than the G6 but the viewing angle of the instruments was funny. Took me quite a while to adjust the steering wheel (tilt and telescope! a nice feature) to where I could read all of the gages. The gages are hard to read, especially the speedometer. It only has every 20mph listed (20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120) and the tick marks in between all look the same with almost no difference in size. This makes figuring out your speed at a glance very tricky and almost impossible to figure out at night without a prolonged stare. Other interior controls are straight forward. Nice layout of cruise and radio controls on the steering wheel. Climate controls are easy to read and operate. The only minus to the center stack is in the digital readout. It is red on black, making it hard to read in some light conditions. With polarized sunglasses, I could not always make out what radio station I was on (with polarized sunglasses getting more popular you would think car makers would maybe test the displays in their cars) and when I could read them the display was cluttered and had information I didn't need on it. All in all a nice interior but needs some big improvement on the gage and readout end.

Performance: Not bad for a 4 cylinder. Not sure on the hp but the G6 I drove seemed faster. This Mazda 6 did have the manual shift option. It would let me hold a gear and not change even if I hit the rev limiter (pretty neat) but shifts did take a while and I was not impressed on how the car lagged coming out of corners. Felt almost like I was driving an 80's Benz turbo diesel. Drive through corner, downshift right after braking (to avoid being thrown into the seat belt when down shifting because the tranny doesn't match revs), stomp the loud peddle and weight. Engine starts to make more noise, no real speed yet, revs pass 4500rpm, still waiting, revs get to 5000 and the car starts to get going. So this car had no torque. This is where the G6 did much better. Seemed to have a lot more torque down low and you could feel the car accelerate (the Vibe did this well also, even the Focus seemed to have some life when reved hard). With this Mazda 6 it just felt lifeless. Big minus in the Zoom Zoom category.

Ok, so I didn't like the gages and I didn't like the performance. But this was the base Mazda 6. I will admit that I almost bought a Mazda 6 Wagon with the V6 about 2 years ago. Very much enjoyed that car (with the V6 it has some punch) and if it had not been for employee pricing on a Saab 92x I would have bought one. Did I like the Mazda or the G6 better? I don't know. I would have to drive them back to back to give a real good review but both where comfortable on long trips, had good base stereos, and plenty of space in the cabin and the boot. I think I would have to lean towards the G6 just because its engine seemed to have a little life and made off the line starts a lot more fun than the Mazda.


TRIUMPH UPDATE!!!!
Last you may have read the radiator hose had let go. I ordered a replacement that never made it too my house. Called up Victoria British and they shipped me out another free of charge and it arrived today. Figure I will get it on this week as well as spending sometime lubing the chassis and topping of fluids to get the TR back on the road by this weekend.