1988 Mazda 626 GLX Estate review from Australia and New Zealand

Spring in carburettor broke so it ran way too rich while warming up. Was like this for over 12 months til it was properly diagnosed.

Alternator and power steering pump overhauled recently.

Rust is starting to eat around the windscreen.

Other than the above, just general maintenance over the last 14 years and 205,000 k's (car has 275,000 total k's now).

This car has been incredible. We purchased it in 1992 when it was 4 years old. It was NZ built so it was quite basic as it was aimed mainly at the commercial fleet buyer. No air-con or power windows although it does have central locking and power steering.

The auto box has been serviced once since we bought it and it still runs like it did in 1992. I don't mean overhauled either, it was just a fluid change. It isn't the smoothest auto and it can be a bit jerky, but it feels solid and strong which is probably why it's lasted so long. We've had Mitsubishi's that have had smoother auto's, but they're absolute rubbish reliability-wise.

Believe it or not, it still has the original exhaust. Maybe because it doesn't have a catalytic converter which aren't required in NZ. I've heard they produce water vapour which can rust out the system. It also has it's original radiator and suspension.

Performance wise it does as it's told. No more no less. It isn't a sports car so if you accept that and don't try to drive it like one, and keep up the routine maintenance, these will last forever.

This car belongs to my parents and I've been so impressed with it that when I moved to Australia I bought the same model, but a 1993 version (same as 1988 to 1992 model, but with the newer Mazda logo on everything). It was built in Japan and it has the 2.2L multi-point EFI engine (it's a manual too so it moves along quite nicely) and power everything. It now has 241,000 k's and it too has proven very reliable and I've only had to do routine maintenance.

Highly recommended, it's a shame the models following our 2 don't seem to have been designed so well, the quality of the automatic transmissions in the later ones leaves a lot to be desired from what I've heard and read.