Mazda 6

Mazda6 17,000 Mile Review

I love this car. I've owned it now for 8 months and drive it daily for approximately 75 miles to and from work mostly, but also the usual daily errands around town. I've also taken it on two road trips of approximately 450 miles each. Just to give you some background of my usage and why I've racked up so many miles already! (My commute is actually a very easy one compared to most people who travel in the opposite direction.) I'm driving the Mazda 6 S sedan, fairly fully-equipped with a manual transmission, air bags, Bose, leather, and a moonroof.

My drives are marked by the car's simple ability to track cleanly without getting in the way of the experience. You get into the the Mazda6 and you don't even notice that you're in a transportation device. It is very similar to the experience that BMW drivers say they feel in tune and harmony with their cars. The Mazda6 is the exact same way (at a much more affordable price point!). Once you're in the car, it envelopes you in a finely-engineered driving machine. It never gets in my way or interferes with the simple pleasure of driving. All of the controls are just where you expect them to be.

The manual shifter is great and I'd put it right up there against many of the finest manual shifters for a V6. Cornering in turns is just amazing. I'll be going through a highway on-ramp turn with some guy tailgating me... Halfway through the turn, I'll step on the accelerator and gracefully come onto the highway at full speed. The guy behind me? He's still struggling with the turn at low speed, trying not to tip over in his honkin' SUV! You can not find the perfect balance between ride comfort and a finely tuned suspension in any other car in this price range. Heck, you will come across poor handling in cars that cost $10k or $20k more!! Mazda really nailed the suspension on the Mazda 6.

Highlights

Suspension - Did I mention the sublime suspension and perfect balance of the car? Oh, I did. Well, I'll mention it again, because in everyday driving you'll notice how easily it moves around turns, cuts through traffic, and does it all with aplumb and grace.

Large interior - I've used my car to haul 4 adults, 3 adults and 2 kids, and all sorts of materials back and forth from the local Home Depot. While I was initially leary of getting the 4-door sedan version of the Mazda 6 because of my active lifestyle needs, I found it works just fine. I have yet to run into a situation where I couldn't get something into my sedan that would've fit into the 5-door.

Perfect driving position - Everything's adjustable, so finding the perfect driving position is easy to do. I like that the doors have more spacious glass than found on many of its competitors (and was one of the reasons I purchased the Mazda6 in the first place). I hate the feeling of being inside an Audi TT, for instance, where only your head rises above the door line. I need to see, and the Mazda 6 makes for good visibility (mostly, see below).

100% Quality - One of my fears in buying a brand new car (my first!) was that I'd have some initial quality problems with it. From reading the online forums and reviews, it seems everybody has them! Have I been pleasantly surprised! I've had zero incidents with this car, nothing even minor that needed fixing or adjusting. My Mazda 6 features a tight interior (no rattles) with a refined fit-and-finish on the outside. All of the seams are perfectly aligned and everything works exactly as engineered. I love it. How come every car can't be built this way?!

Price versus features - You forget once you purchase something this large about the price. And yet the price is one of the main reasons people shop in this category. I feel like I almost underpaid for what I got... This is a superbly engineered car, perfectly balanced and well-equipped for a very reasonable price (far less than a comparably equipped Toyota or Honda). I feel for what I got, I got a very good deal.

Styling - Again, one of the original reasons for my purchase was its distinctive styling (although I am now finally starting to see more of them on the road). I take it for granted that I have one of the coolest cars on the road today. It still turns heads, even by drivers in far more expensive Acuras and BMWs. That's because the Mazda designers hit the Mazda 6 styling homerun. Nothing even comes close to looking this cool in this price range (without crossing over the line and just looking plain tacky or ugly).

Lowlights

Turning radius - If you've read many reviews of the Mazda 6, you'll note that the turning radius is too large for some. What this means in real life is that you have to plan accordingly when you pull into that parking spot, and make a slightly large turn than you made be used to.

Rear visibility - 99% of the time, this is not an issue for me and in normal, everyday driving, I feel fine with my blind spots in this car (no worse than any other out there today). I only bring it up because I notice I have a harder time backing into parking spaces with this car than others I've driven, and I attribute that to rear visibility. I think some of it, too, is still getting used to the car's dimensions.

Low end torque - I want more of it in the V6. I often feel like I have to gun the engine far too much in order to get the on-demand acceleration I sometimes need. I hope newer models bump up the low-end torque by 10-15%. That's all it really needs.

Some interior controls - I love the interior styling, although I didn't at first. It definitely grows on you if you're not initially a fan of silver plastic as the primary console material. It's high quality and I've had no scratches or incidents with mine. However, some of the controls are a little misplaced. The clock buttons should be reversed as I'm always pressing the AMBient temperature button to see the outside temperature (it changes back to the climate control setting whenever you make a change to the settings). A minor annoyance, at most. The climate controls are the same way -- the way they function and are laid out must've been design by the industrial design group rather than a functional usability group. They look cool, they're just a pain to manipulate. Although I have the automatic climate control, I rarely use it because I don't like the assumptions it makes. All of the rest of the controls -- including the radio controls -- are perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. (You might notice this is the largest paragraph in the review, but when you think about it, drivers spend most of their time alone in their cars, fiddling with controls. It's hard to get them right and right for me may not be right for the next person. So take this with a grain of salt -- you may like them all just fine!)

Overall, I love my Mazda 6. I wouldn't trade it in for the world, and I hope you understand that if you buy one too, you won't regret it!!