2000 Mazda 626 LX review from North America

I bought this car in 2001. It had 7,000 miles on it. At first, it ran perfectly. Not even two months ago, things went south.

The first major thing that went wrong, was that it had a major oil leak. It was taking 2 quarts of oil every 3 days. After 9 days, and 1 day before it was scheduled to be fixed, the car just stopped running. Before it died, I kept all the scheduled oil changes at the dealership, and they told me that everything was fine with the car. So, I know this wasn't my fault. The dealership was no help. They wouldn't cover it under the warranty, because it had expired a month prior. It cost me $300 dollars to fix. Not even an hour after I had gotten it back, it was shoulder decoration once more.

This time, it was the starter. Once again, it was somehow my fault that the starter had gone bad. And once again, the repairs had to be made out of pocket. I'm not even sure how much this cost to repair. I was just so disgusted with the dealership, that I just paid it and hoped that it would be the last time I saw them.

30 minutes later, the rods went. Now I know nothing about cars, and frankly, I don't even know what a rod does, but I do know that I would have had to replace the whole engine. Come to find out later, by one of my Uncles, that the noise that I thought was perfectly normal, since it had been making that noise since the day I bought it, was a sign that the rods were bad. I didn't even bother taking it back to the dealership this time.

Other than the things previously listed, I have no complaints about this car. I fell in love with it.

It picked up speed like nobody's business.

It was great on gas. That's probably the thing I'm going to miss the most.

It was a bit lacking in head and leg room, but not enough that it was terribly uncomfortable.

To sum it up, it was a great car until 2 months ago. I can't afford to keep fixing this car, so I'm getting rid of it. I'm currently in the market for another Nissan. Both Nissan's, that I've owned, have been nothing, but excellent.

I might look into buying another Mazda, but not a 626.