Re: Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla or Mazda, which is best????

 Personally, Corolla or small Mazda would be my choice.

Joe in Northern, NJ  -  V#8013-R

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  In article


Check Consumer Reports, and the other car buying guides for their
reliability assessments.

 

For reliability and gas mileage I'd go with the Civic or Corolla.  The
Corolla has been out for a while but I believe the redesign is coming out
for '09.  I know a few people who has the newer Civic and love it, although
I have not personally driven it.  I'm assuming you mean the Mazda3, which is
a really fun car to drive.  The reliability is supposed to be decent but I
didn't care for their dealerships and sales managers/reps.  Upkeep will
probably be better with the Civic and Corolla.

The Corolla is a smoother riding car but to me it's a little boring.  The
new Civic has been getting excellent reviews and the drive is a little
sportier than the Corolla.  The Mazda3 (2.3 liter version) is a blast to
drive.  I test drove all 3 in '05 when I was shopping for a new car but the
new Civic wasn't out yet.

Do you consider how a car drives as well?  Test drive all 3 and see what you
think.  DO NOT let them pressure you into buying on the spot!  Negotiate and
take your time.  Car dealers are slow now anyway so they'll be calling you
back.

For the reasons you listed, I'd go with: 1) Civic 2) Corolla 3) Mazda3
For my personal reasons, I'd go with:   1) Civic 2) Mazda3 3) Corolla

All the cars I test drove were manual transmission.

-Dave
btw - In '05, I ended up going with an Accord with manual tranny.  Was able
to get it to an excellent price, and it still runs great.

 wrote:


Having owned all three (Protege, Corolla and Civic) over the years,
all were well built and had great reliability with regular (scheduled)
maintainence.  The current Corolla and the Civic get better fuel
mileage than the Mazda 3 -- Mazda has targeted a sportier image and a
younger demographic with their Zoom! Zoom! campaign and mileage has
not been a priority.

We just traded in my wife's aging Mazda Protege on a new Pontiac Vibe,
which is a Toyota Matrix (Corolla wagon) under the skin.  The reason
we went with the Pontiac is because they are currently offering a
$2000 factory rebate, which made the final price pretty attractive,
plus there is a (good, small town) dealer nearby.


Dennis (evil)
--
My output is down, my income is up, I take a short position on the long bond and
my revenue stream has its own cash flow.  -George Carlin

 I would suggest buying an American car, but there aren't too many small
American cars left.  They all but forfeited the small car market to the
Japanese and Koreans.  The Cobalt and Focus are kind of ugly.

I'd consider the Korean cars.  They look better than the Japanese cars
and are cheaper.  And the quality of the Korean cars has gone up while
the Japanese quality has gone down a bit.  Plus the 10 year warranty of
Kia and Hyundai.

We bought a brand new Kia Sedona in 2005 and never have had any trouble
with it, yet.  The fit and finish are good, and it looks nice.