As the very happy owner of a 2006 sedan (4cyl) with 201,000 miles on it and still running great. It's the best car, by far, I've ever owned. I tried to find a wagon when I bought mine new, but they were scarce. The 2004 you posted looks good, but I would definaetly have a local mechanic inspect it carefully before throwing down your $$. Spending $50-$100. for a inspection is money very well spent and if something needs replacing, you have negotiation power. Good luck.

 

Glad to hear it. I'm definitely getting it inspected if I go through with it. I got my last car inspected and it turned out pretty well.

 

Alright, so to continue this saga...I got a CarFax report from the dealer.

Unfortunately, the car was in Michigan for the first 5 years (73,332 miles) of its life. The rest were in Tennessee.

It was in a rear end fender bender and the bumper and tailgate were replaced.

The clutch was replaced at 56, 881 miles in January of 2009. Seems quite early for a clutch.

So I'm a little bummed out about all this, especially the fact that started life in Michigan.

So now that we know all of this, what do you think? I want it so badly, but it's not sounding so good anymore.

Here's the CarFax if anyone wants to look at it.

 

doesnt sound too bad to be honest, its all just negotiation power. my friends mazda 6 got t boned, drivers door was replaced and you couldve sworn that nothing happened to the car. take a look at the car, if the tailgate open and closes no problem and the fix was done well its not a big deal. when you are dealing with a car that has that many km its very important that you change the oil often. dont rev it out too often either but you can have some fun from time to time

 

Yeah, it's probably not too bad. My main concern is rust underneath the car. I just wish it was closer to me so I could easily check it out myself.

 

"My main concern is rust underneath the car."

That would be my main concern too and frankly, I would walk away.

 

READ: https://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/maz...zda-6-a-31330/

 

Dang, that was rough. Looks like they did a good job fixing it, though.

 

Looks like someone else bought it. I'm pretty bummed out, but that's what happens when you wait...

I'm wondering if someone saw it because of my post and bought it. haha

 

Alright, guys, an update. I went and test drove a different one today. It's a 2006 in black. I'm not going to post it here yet as I feel like that's how the previous one got sold, but you can probably find it easily enough. This one has ~111,000 miles on it and it's lived in Georgia all its life, thankfully. It's $7000.

It was interesting to drive. It actually felt higher up than I expected (not saying that's good or bad, just an observation). The visibility is quite good out of it. The manual was interesting as I've only driven my dad's '06 Cayman S and no other manuals. The shifter certainly feels more vague, but it's so much easier to drive than the Cayman. I thought for sure I'd stall it out of nervousness and just being new to it but I didn't. It's very easy to shift smoothly. It's feels quite effortless; it'd make a good car to learn manual on. The ride was quite smooth, and it was certainly smoother than my Explorer. I didn't really test out the handling, but everything felt good.

The only things I encountered were that the mirror adjustment didn't work on either mirror (some kind of fuse or switch problem?), and it looked like there was what I think was dried up coolant (white in color) on the engine cover (not sure what that means?).

The Carfax checks out fine, but of course that doesn't tell everything, but it's still something. I'll certainly get it inspected if I decide to go with it, and I'll probably take another test drive. It's an hour and a half away from me, so I'll probably have to wait until next weekend. I'm really glad I got to test drive one, though, and I'm going to have a hard time getting it off my mind.