My new car....

[sethy]

Originally it was determined that I was going to get a Jeep cherokee, but that has changed and I am in fact getting ym Mazda.



Anyone have any complaints with a 07 Mazda grand touring?

Only thing that I saw about this car that was a red flag to me was there is a tiny bit of rust over one of the doors.

[Google Adsense]

[trailtow]

very nice car also good mpg

[rickr]

Looks good, sporty, gets decent mileage, Mazda reliability... Looks like a good buy!

Nice to know there's one less SUV on the road. The Mazda is much easier to see around.

[FoolishOne]

Looks good, sporty, gets decent mileage, Mazda reliability... Looks like a good buy!

Nice to know there's one less SUV on the road. The Mazda is much easier to see around.

x2.


Get that rust taken care of, while it's tiny and easily fixed.

[snoopyc4]

Awesome car, start raking up the saves

[JDS]

Very nice car, I like Mazdas a lot.

[supercowpowers]

Well I'm going to blow my cover and admit that I have almost the same car - '08 Mazda 6S Touring (not Grand Touring)

Likes:
- Pretty tossable for a FWD car that's a little on the large side
- Six speed auto is smooth and smart enough to be trusted in D when I'm just cruising
- Great highway manners (at least compared to the sloppy Buick and twitchy Miata I've had.
- The looks have held up well considering this generation is a few years old. I actually prefer it to the 09's...
- Nearly imperceptible torque steer (however, I've never driven much with the traction control off)

Dislikes:
- 119 MPH (GPS) speed limiter that no one seems to know how to disable
- With a V6, it doesn't have the gas mileage folks in here seem to think it has. I get I think around 23-24 MPG, but I don't calculate every tank and I spend at least 1/4 of each tank above 85 MPH.
- Seat was not comfortable at first, see below
- 6 disc changer doesn't pay MP3 CD's

Seat fix:
I could not get comfortable in the stock driver's seat. My Touring has a power seat with cloth, and I can only assume the Grand Touring has the same power seat with leather, so the stuff underneath should be the same. The problem is that the driver's seat has a rather aggressive lumbar support, so even when it was adjusted to the minimum, it felt like the only thing being supported were two or three lower vertibrae in my lumbar area and the very top of my shoulders, which caused my upper back, shoulders and neck to fight against the seat to remain upright and caused great discomfort.

Frustrated, I unhooked the seat covers at the bottom of the rear of the backrest so I could take a look inside and discovered that there's a wave-shaped spring that's drawn across the seat a few inches above the lumbar support. It was hooked in to its mounts by small pieces at the ends that were bent forward, so I simply removed it and reversed it so it gave a bit more support to the upper back area. It may be hard to understand, but it makes sense when you look at it.

That simple fix actually dramatically improved the way the seat fits me, and I just went on a 4 hour drive yesterday with no great discomfort. Before the fix, I couldn't go half an hour before I started squirming around and wishing I were driving my other car.

You might not have a problem with it because everyone is built different, but there you go if you need it.

[JDS]

Having a seat you like is VITAL. I love the Recaros in my VW, although I always have the lumbar support cranked up to the maximum setting. But aside from back contour, it's also important that the seat prevents lateral motion. I HATE seats where I feel like I'm sliding around to either side.

I'm pretty shocked that nobody has figured out how to disable the limiter. Aren't there any ECU reflashes for that car? That usually erases the limiter.

My car doesn't play MP3 CDs either, but long ago somebody figured out a very cheap way to attach a line-in jack to the stock Monsoon double-DIN head unit. Usually it's wired up with a cable coming out of the center console or the glovebox. It may be possible to do something similar with the Mazda.

[MEM-TEK]

I have owned two Mazdas in the past, and I drove both of them until they died after around 180K miles on each of them.