02-03 Mazda Protege5
 

Im thinking about picking one up for a DD. Anyone have any advice on what to look for? Specific quirks or known problems?

Get a 5-speed version, or be prepared to go through transmissions like water. The automatic transmissions on these cars are horrible.

There must be a reason I rarely see one on the road. Usually a sign they are turds.

a friend of mine loves his. it's been the more reliable car of all of his mazdas(1st gen protege, p5 and msp). I say go for it. good lookin hatchback.

Or it could be they weren't in production for more then 2 years so there aren't many of them to begin with.

When compared to a MSP, a 5-speed P5 is way more reliable. The MSP's have turbo issues and LSD issues.

The P5 with a manual transmission is a wonderful reliable car, the 2.0L engine is a little on the weak side, and the after market for the car is expensive for some reason, but it's still a great car.

Weak side, what do you mean? Underpowered or needs internals to hold any kind of boost?

I was leaning towards 5-speed. I did alittle looking around last night and apparently there was a turbo model or a factory boost option....

They are under powered, and boosted they will only hold 300hp safely, maybe less. They never came from the factory boosted, only the Mazda Speed Protege came boosted from the factory from the Protege family.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Just a few more questions. How bad is replacement parts(cost/availability) since they were only made for 2 years? What forum would have the best info on maintenance and modification? Thanks for the info.

mazdas247.com

they are super reliable as long as you DON'T boost it, but if its gonna be a DD it shouldn't matter. get a 5spd cause autos(in general) suck and parts are pretty cheap for whatever you need, I've always used rockauto and they've had what i've needed for the 3 mazda's i had. the hatch and good mpg make them perfect daily status

They are lots of fun, especially in the corners. and they are reliable cars. I DD a Protege for 6 years. Bought it for $1900 with 120,000 miles, drove it as a pizza delivery driver for 10,000 miles, it was driven in 12 hour shifts and over 100 miles per day for work, Traveled on 3-4 hour trips many times with it. 32 city, 39 highway for the version I had. Great car. Then I sold it for $1500 with 160,000 miles on it with no problems. Cheapest car you can possibly own. I also had a friend with a Protege that hit 285,000 before he sold it for a minivan for his family. And another friend of mine has a Protege5 with 110,000 miles on it that he DD's. I also knew a delivery driver that DD a Protege5 and used it for work with no problems.

my ex had a red automatic P5 that we took everywhere. It never had issues. Great car. I'd get one in manual for sure.

Replacement parts are dirt cheap because it's a common engine and transmission. The same engine/tranny combo was used in MP3s and other Protege models. It's the performance parts that are costly.

Trust me get a manual, My friend went through 6 automatic transmissions before we got a manual swap for his P5.