Well after thinking about my options, I decided to pass the XB to my wife and I picked up a 2005 Mazda3 S Sedan. It's nice to have some HP now! I am definitely happy w/ my decision, but she did make me take off the Mille-Miglia Spider II 18's and put the stock alloys back on. kindof looks wimpy again. I'll be posting the wheels up for sale soon.

the mazda 3 s has horsepower? compared to the xb maybe, but it's a boat anchor if you ask me.

yeah it's quite heavy hp or not.

Shame...

geez and gave up the Xb for that????

I got the XB last November after selling my 99 Suzuki Esteem Wagon(Oh Yeah!) to my buddy and she was still driving her 98 Rav4..the Rav4 was worth alot more than we owed, so we decided to get something else. I narrowed it down to a TC, another XB or the Mazda3. The Mazda just felt right. Granted it was the most expensive car we were looking at, but in the end we got a good deal on it.

Thats to bad for less money could have fixed up the TC
and beat the pants off a mazda 3.
I must admit the mazda is a nice looking car.

I really wanted 4 doors too...

good lord man! so many haters! it's not like the guy traded in the scion for the mazda...if i had the option to keep my xb and buy a 2nd car that had more power, i'd do it in a heart beat!!

i say congrats on your purchase, bro...and kudos to you for keeping the xb in the family.

Too bad you wasted the money on the Mazda3. For $19,425 you could have gotten the Saab 9-2x Aero, which is a Subaru WRX wagon, with the Saab front end. Right now with the GM Buy power, you could have gotten 3x the deal you did on the Mazda for a much quicker, better handling car, with AWD.... Oh well.

where can you get a saab 9-2x aero for that price? the msrp on saab's website is like almsot $28k.

http://www.saabusa.com/saabjsp/92x/index.jsp

Oh...sorry...re-read your post and saw where you mentioned GM Buy power. My baaaad.

Mazda 3, ACCCH - TOOO!

your wife must be stoked!

I test drove a Mazda 3 with a friend. To be honest.. right after the test drive we got the hell out of there.

I was really not impressed with it at all.

Not to be a hater... but it seems like there are a lot of other cars out there that would be better.


That said... Congrats.

I don't like Mazda, but the new 3 is definitely a hot ride. Congratulations.

-THE DON

I appreciate all the feedback, even the negative stuff! Now I am kindof kickin myself for not lookin at the Saab's. I must have researched every vehicle out there in the under $20,000 range. Of course, I had no idea that GM would be running the promo that they are running, so that Saab would have been out of my range. i picked up my Mazda on 5/29..acouple days before I heard about the GM employee discount for all promo. Oh well..the best part about the situation is I still have the SCION and a Mazda and they are both sweet rides!

Congrats on the purchase! I like the 3 alot, would've chosen the hatch personally, but they're both awsome cars with great sheetmetal. I honestly think the base 3's interior looks better and more desireable than the base 6's. As for the power, it's relative to what YOU want/need. For me, the 2.3 is more than enough for daily driving. If you want rocketship G's, get a bike. Again congratz!