Sunburn's Protegé5 pageIn summer 2001, I bought a 2002 Mazda Protegé5, and here's a page devoted to the car. The sections are: PicturesHere are some photos of my Protege5. Click on a thumbnail to get the larger image.AfterAs in, after the tint job and moonroof deflector were put on. Now with the bumper guard:
I had to take one picture of our pair of Proteges, both freshly washed and waxed. My wife's LX had around 40K miles on it and my P5 had around 9K miles on it when this was taken: BeforeAs in, before the tint and deflectorSpecifications and ModificationsThe main specs on the car can be found at MazdaUSA's Web site. I got it with the following factory options:
Modifications, so far not too much:
I did the speaker installation myself, you can read all about that, including pictures. I'm keeping the stock head unit because I like the color matching with the other dash lighting, because the ergonomics are good, and because there's nothing interesting for thieves to see. So far, the aftermarket speakers and amp sound great. I don't plan to add a big subwoofer because one of the reasons I got the car was for the utility of the hatch, and that's rather defeated by putting something big in the trunk. Right now I'm considering a Kenwood wOOx or a Clarion SRV303 mini-sub to give the low end just a little more oomph. Several folks have asked about the tint job. The tint is not the same % all around. Other than the windshield in the P5, there are five relevant windows:
This makes all the transitions from one window to the next no larger than 5% so it looks smooth as your eye goes from front to back. Make sure you get a good metal-based tint--mine is the high-end titanium-based stuff. Expensive, but it looks great. ReviewsI've been collecting reviews on the Web. If you've seen a review for the Mazda Protegé5 that isn't on this list, please let me know! It's also worth pointing out that Car and Driver has a small-wagon shootout in the June 2002 issue. It included the Protegé5, the Ford Focus ZX5, the Toyota Matrix XRS, the Pontiac Vibe, the Dodge PT Cruiser, and the Suzuki Aero. They proclaimed the Protege5 the winner. To be fair, Consumer Reports did a review in their recent issue (against the Vibe, Matrix, ZX5, Subaru Impreza Outback Sport, and VW Jetta Wagon) and they didn't like the Pro so much.
And a few entries from our neighbors to the north (that's Canada for those of you missing your elmentary school geography). Note that prices and base feature sets will be somewhat different for the Canadians, eh.
Now, after reading all those reviews (and I didn't select only the good ones, these are all the reviews I could find, no matter what they said), you want to know more, right? So go test drive one already! Mini-FAQOK, so a few questions keep getting asked on various Protegé boards and I haven't seen them in other FAQs, so I'm starting a small one here for questions that I wanted answers to.
What are the stock speaker sizes? Numerous people (including myself) have successfully installed 6.5" speakers in the front with an adapter they've fabricated out of plywood or MDF. I used a retail adapter that cost like six bucks to do it.
How do I get the door panels off to install speakers? There are three other excellent Web pages which document this process, or at least pieces of it:
What's up with the wind noise? The good news here is that the addition of the moon roof deflector takes care of most of it quite nicely.
Last modified 2002.07.04, Copyright ©2001-2 Mike Byrne |