Since my Protege5 was just totalled, I find myself on the market for a Mazda3 hatchback w/AT. I guess life is not all bad.

Within my price range, roughly, I see Mazda3s from 2004 to 2008. Some cars have much higher mileage than others, but physically they roughly look similar.

Does anyone have a guide to how Mazda3 features (or quality) might have evolved from 2004 to 2008? Were some years "good" and others "bad"? Basically, would you pay the premium for a later year, or does 2004 seem good enough?

Not planning to race it or mod it, except for adding iPod integration to the stereo.

I plan to keep the car indefinitely, or until another old lady runs into me.

Thanks.

 

My understanding is that there were a number of updates which happened for the 2006 model year and another round mid-way through the 2008 model year (call them 2008.5 models), and even one or two changes for the very short run of 2009 models. Unfortunately since I have a 2009 I'm not really able to tell you what changed for previous updates except to say that the "sages" around here routinely steer folks to the 2006 or newer models.

The one change I know of for 2009 is the addition of the trunk/hatch release on the remote. Funny thing, my sales person back in 2008 was offering me either a base 2008 Mazda3 s with the 2.3 liter motor or a 2009 Mazda3 i TVE with the 2.0 liter motor for the exact same price; the remote trunk release was enough of a "feature" for me to forgo the larger engine. Go figure.