That Rabbit with the 5-pot is still, to this day, one of the cars I am a fond of. Though, we have a Mk6 Golf in with that 2.5L I5 in our stable, it's such a blast to drive. One of the coolest sounding, fun-to-wring engines out there. The 07k I5 has got enough power that's easy and fun to use. Not to mention, the design still looks nice to this day.
My biggest takeaway from this is that these were all more expensive than I would have thought, perhaps partially from it being beaten into my eyeballs every week about how expensive new cars are. These are all in the $16k-$18k(ish) range, and 18 years later there are still compact cars available in the $18k-$23k(ish) range.
Another interesting point is that they were all available in manual and almost all of them had available performance trims (other than the Elantra, although the current generation fixed that), albeit not tested here.
> Another interesting point is that they were all available in manual
That's because they were cheap. The manual transmission wasn't there for driving purity.
Manuals still had the fuel economy advantage back then so they had a reason to exist
Once that change there wasn't any reason for car companies to keep them around
Yeah, prices have gotten a bit insane on a lot of cars, but the low end compacts are a screaming deal comparatively. I paid about $1k more for my base 2019 Jetta than what the sticker was on my base **2000** Jetta in absolute dollars. No idea what the original owner actually paid for that base 2000, but still was mind blowing when I realized that.
That's actually nice to know.
You can still get a base, barebones car for sub $20k if you look hard enough. It won't be a suv, pick up truck, or roadster. But it'll have 4 doors, 4 cylinder engines, and be sort of reliable for the next 50k miles.
Heck, Versas in my area are being advertised as sub $16k cars.
But if you want a corolla, civic, or mazda 3.......
If you want a spacious suv you're going to have to open your wallet.
Exactly. I think it was a typo. Surely they wouldn't have said 7 cars, and then completely forget about a car altogether. I think they meant to say 6 cars. It's just funny, because this is a very avoidable mistake. You just.....count lol.
Probably wrote the article under the pretense they were testing either a focus or cobalt as well. The fact that these cars were omitted makes the whole article kind of pointless. I get that they were looking at manuals only but those cars did come in manual. They just couldn’t get one. It’s not good consumer advice if you can’t get everything in the category.
Ehh, there have been countless C&D comparisons between any given segment where all the cars available aren't in the test. That doesn't mean it's pointless. They usually tend to include said missing cars in another test at another time. Or at the very least, those cars would get their own road test review, which you could surmise the results against the other cars.
The Corolla and Civic are for boring people and accountants. The Hyundai is for people who want a lot of "stuff" for the same amount of money. The VW is for rich kids, then Mazda 3 is for people who want a sporty car and the Sentra is for poor kids .
> We have no passion for this compact, but we'll most certainly respect it in the morning, and for years of mornings to come.
Speak for yourselves, still have my 07 and it fucks.
I had a 2007 Mazda 3 with the 2.3L. Definitely a very athletic car. Suspension, handling and weight of it made it really fun to toss into corners. Only downsides were the automatic transmission and the road noise on the highway. I couldn't hear myself think going anywhere north of 60 mph. If I had it in a manual I'd have kept it for longer, honestly.
I'd only owned Hondas and Nissans at the time, but I remember when the Mazda 3 came out and how impressed I was with it. I was interested in Mazda when the Protege MP3, 5, and Mazdaspeeds came out but I think I became a fan when the 3 was released. I remember walking through the mall in late 2003 and they had a yellow one sitting there. I finally got to test drive it the following Spring. Really liked it but couldn't afford a new car at the time. I finally got a 3rd gen (2017), and if a tree hadn't fallen on it last year I'd still be driving it. I like my GLI but that was the best car I've owned thus far.
29 Comments
TheChickenScampi@reddit
Extra_Bath_3768@reddit
lifegoeson2702@reddit (OP)
ChirpyRaven@reddit
Fit_Equivalent3610@reddit
strongmanass@reddit
Fit_Equivalent3610@reddit
Careless-Trick-5117@reddit
Riverrattpei@reddit
BlazinAzn38@reddit
boomerbill69@reddit
TurkeyBLTSandwich@reddit
thisisjustascreename@reddit
BlazinAzn38@reddit
Roid-a-holic_ReX@reddit
niftyjack@reddit
Shomegrown@reddit
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
Crash458@reddit
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
Roid-a-holic_ReX@reddit
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
cat_prophecy@reddit
Ihathreturd@reddit
Dest1@reddit
temptags@reddit
jondes99@reddit
thisisjustascreename@reddit
ChasedWarrior@reddit