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civic works pretty good in its showroom stock class. so does the 3. Big reason I like the civic better is weight. the 3 is heavy, just like the scion and jetta. nice cars for runnin around town in but I cant find a car that will haul for like mine look as nice as mine last as long as mine and weigh the same or less then mine. And yes I do intend to keep it for 200k. one of my best friends just bought a 6 and 30k later he needs front driveshafts cause the cv joints died, from driving to work, in california. I like the RX series and the miata sure is cool but they arent known for being long lasting or durable.

As a mechanic, these hondas are very well thought out and extremly strong. They dont have an aura of reliability, they are reliable cars.

 
Rep Power: 811

My dad bought a 92 miata off someone a year ago. Only thing that needed fixing in it's whole life was the clutch. Otherwise it runs like the day it was made.

 
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Mm, as I mentioned before my dad's 1991 929 (the car I learned to drive on years and years ago) lasted me learning to drive (read: lead foot), 2 accidents stemming from that and made it up to 360,000km or so before being stolen (as mentioned before) and a Millenia that is still going strong. Like I mentioned earlier, once people get an idea in their head about a car and quality any bad anecdotes they hear reinforces their point and any good anecdotes they hear they ignore as freak. I don't think anyone is really going to ignore that, its callous and rash, sure, but people do it anyways.

 
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civic. its cheap and it'll run forever.

 
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People don't have ideas in thier head about the the quality of thier car. Consumer reports clearly state the mechanical and build quality of motor vehicles. For example there is no debating the obvious superiority of Lexus build quality in the Luxury car market. No one would try to debate that for example an Audi is a better built car then a Lexus. So why is it that when it comes to the compact car market that there is an attempt to argue that a lesser 'well built' car like a mazda 3 is superior in terms of quality to a more 'well built' honda. The facts are not in the Honda owner's heads they are based on real quality surveys by reputable companies. Personal accounts are arbitrary when discussing the 'actual' quality of a car.

 
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Honda Civic do have a better build, however it is simpler compare to Mazda3.

 
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If all these 'reputable' companies do all these surveys, then why do a lot of the surveys come out w. different results? What variables do they analyze? Is their data complete and their technique of surveying sound? Are they impartial? Who pays these people to do their surveys? Its not exactly like the government ordered a survey and are paying them to be impartial.

Quality is widely variable, look at the Focus for example, my ex.-g/f has had a Focus wagon now for the better part of 4/5 years and shes not had one problem w. it yet, all recall notices were taken care of during oil changes and presented no problems. Yet consumer reports would lead you to believe that her car should be in the shop 24/7, well thats simply not true.

Its all about perception, perception and one or two anecdotal experiences. And frankly, even if you do rely on surveys, its not exactly like Mazda is in the bottom of the list, its right up there w. Honda.

 
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i think at the end of the day it's really dependant on how people maintain their car and if they take the extra effort to spend a little money when needed to keep it running. ex. my dad had his k&n drop in on his dakota so dirty the rpms bounced a little when it would idle. i'm sure that wasn't any good for the truck but he still didn't change it for another two months after he knew what the problem was. People also hate those regular maintenace check ups.

 
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That's very true that few if any of these companies are impatial to any brand. The only way to compinsate is by readin them from different places and getting a generalized idea of where a company stands with respect to it's compition.

The only thing I disagree with is that Honda and Mazda are at the same level, sure Mazda is not even close to the lowwest (that's what I call the KIA region) but, I just don't see many of these companies manking Mazda's and Honda together.

Usually I see HOnda and Toyota on top, then I see Mazda, NIssan and such, then the Domestic companies with the low end buget cars like KIA and Hundyi at the end.

 
Rep Power: 287

MAZDA3
performance
value for the money

CIVIC
reliability
styling
resale value
better aftermarket support
quality
Chick magnet

civic does it for me...

 
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BAHAHAHAH

"chick magnet"

 
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MAZDA3
performance - YES
value for the money - YES

CIVIC
styling - that's subjective
better aftermarket support - yet to be seen since it's a new vehicle and in reality look at the d17, there's not really that much out for it especially with it's little to no potential.

 
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Chick magnet is under the wrong car.

 
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no it's not Imo you can't just believe consumer reports because that's not an accurate average assessment. My civic has had zero mechanical problems and I know quite a few lexus audi etc that have had failures. So in this case, my civic is more reliable. No car will ever be built the same. Just look at our own civic problems forum and see.

 
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well since that's settled, let's buy some kia's!!!!

 
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Lol well how many kias have you heard that break down or hyundai? A few maybe, but because they're cheap people expect bad quality. A civic is cheap too compared to other cars. I guess that's why it has problems But hey my rental now is a pontiac grand prix and that thing is terrible in every way. Seats suck, engine is so loud and sloppy auto tranny, feels like it's ready to die and not even 20k miles on it!

 
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But it's a rental... No car has a rougher 20K than a rental.

And Audi's haven't been rated all that realable lately. Another good reasure of quality is the number of lemons produced per a year. And Audi is almost the same as Honda as for number of lemmons, but Honda probably sells about 4-5 times the number of cars Audi does, so the prectage of Audi lemmon is much higher than the precentage of Honda lemmons.

So go buy an Audi and a pint of Vodka!!!

 
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Conclusion is that Civic is very cheap for its reliability! Mazda's bad reliability trade off with its good equipment.

We all pay for what we get!

 
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I think he meant civic coupe compare with any mazda 3...then it all makes sense.

 
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For me it was a toss up between mazda3 and civic when I was buying a car a few months ago. The main reason I didn't get the 3 was because it was too expensive and I got a really good deal on an ex 4door. Some other reasons I didn't get the three are lower gas mileage and lower resale value. I will admit the 3 is awesome inside. Looks real high class. It has real nice cornering like you wouldn't believe too. But anyway, if I could have afforded it I probably would have gone with a 3 when comparing it to the same class as a civic but if I could really afford a better car I'd probably not go with a 6, even the new mazdaspeed that's supposed to come out and go with a TSX instead. Just my opinion but I think Honda made cars are always more reliable and just last a hell of a lot longer.

 
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It doesn't really matter what the reality is, or what surveys show even, people just have predispositions in mind when they buy a new car. Quality surveys are showing that for the last few years quality at Hyundai has been getting better and better, the copy of this year's Lemon Guide I have even recommends some Hyundais now, but nobody here will go near the things because they lump them with the rest of the sub-standard *cough* Kia *cough* cars coming out of S. Korea and make reference back to some old Accent they had 6 years ago that kept having engine problems.

It takes a lot to shake any kind of image like that. Just ask VW, they had a huge fiasco with their electrical systems a while back (window regulators was it?) and they kept replacing the parts w. still dysfunctional parts because decent replacements hadn't arrived yet so people had to go back to the shop again and again and now VW is losing massive market share because everyone associates their cars w. being lemons and over what? a window regulator.

 
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Yean but I don't want to go back to the dealer several time regardless of if it is for a window regualtor or a new motor. I had a freind with the VW bug (the most fugly car in production), but she had so many little things go wrong with that car, just little stupid stuff like heater controlls and swtichs and stuff, she sold it after only 6 months because it went to the shop 8 times in that 6 months. My wife's boss has an Audi A4, and says the same thing. Yeah I know indivuals don't mean anything, but when ever body I know that has VW product (11 in all, with 3 years or newwer VW or Audil) complains about it, I don't think it's just the random bad car that sometimes comes around. Thay all say it handles great, and they never have major problems or anything, but they just hate all the stupid little things keep braking. It's the chance they may screw up like that agian that keep people away.

Hundyia is S. Korea too. And yeah it does take alot to shake an image like that, but that is what we call survival of the fitest. I fyou can't make a good product at a good price, you loose to your competition and there is plenty of compition in the car market. And that's a good thing, other wise we would all be driving around carbutor small block chevy's or something.

 
Rep Power: 288

thats what she gets for buying the least reliable car on the road right now. Jettas, Golfs and Bugs. even Korean cars and Dumbmestics score better.

 
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Golfs and VW in general are getting a bit better, they had some earlier quality control problems (my 1997 being a prime example of that) but thers a lot of hope for the new Golf coming out, and judging by the pictures, its quite a handsome car at that.

As for 'survival of the fittest' that doesn't apply in car markets, as perception and past experience takes precedence. Take Hyundai for example, all quality surveys show their quality improving and they were even a 'recommended' buy in this year's Lemon Guide, despite this fact though, they still garner a small market share because nobody wants to be seen driving a 'cheap Korean car', the image of low quality haunts them today, despite the fact their prices are low and their product sound.

Its not reality, its perception and in the end thats what decides for people, thats why Audi and VW are still selling cars today, because people -perceive- them as being quality -German- automobiles. Meanwhile, Golfs are made everywhere from Mexico to Brazil and Audi has a list of expensive quality problems thats absolutely enormous.

 
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I think your view is not wide enough... You are forgetting about many companies out side the US. By the time a car manufacture makes it to the US, they have either been 1. bought buy Ford, Chevy or Chysler or 2. they have become strong/large enough to send cars here. A car manufacture simply does not start oneday and then send there firs set of cars to the US, their car's have to be able to compete with the Ford's and Chevy's (which maybe lowwer quality, but are made and sold really cheap). Look at companies like Citreon, Alfa Rameo, and so on, the list of companies that just couldn't cut it here in the US is large.

 
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Well, thats not necessarily true. Look at Subaru, it didn't start off as an enormous company (even though it had quite a large market following outside of the world). Same with Hynundai and Mazda, neither of them are huge firms, at least not when put beside companies like GM or DaimlerChrysler.

Thats all irrelevant though, what I was saying was to bolster my previous point: actual and perceived value and quality of a car is based on litle more than predispositions of an individual and assorted annecdotes both personal and otherwise that they've picked up.

 
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Subaru is a small company? Let me give you an exmaple of a small car company. India there is a small car company that I can not say nor spell (hence I don't speak hindu). But they have all of one car in there line up. It sells for $3,500 US dollars and doesn't even go above 45 mph, now that is a small company. That company is not planning on coming to the US anytime soon. How can you say a company like Subaru who has a 5 (6 if include the STi as it's own) models and none of them are under $15,000. That was my point behind you are only considering companies that have made it to the US.

I hardly call 11 bad VW's bad, that's 100% of all people I know with a VW made in the last 3 years have complained anout stupid stuff breaking, a coincidence. By dismissing one or two poeple that say my VW swtichs always break, you can through those out as not good example (we call them outliers in science). But to through out a whole sample set, in this case 11 people out of 11, is ignorant. If oyu do a probabilty calculation on the 11 people I know wiht VW's all getting bad ones, agianst say that maybe only 5% of VW's are bad, I'm betting it should be about 0.0001% chance of happening, it is going to be closer to 50% of all VW's are bad (with switches and stuff). Allright you don't have to know statistics to know that if 11 out 11 people you talk to that have VW's are bad, something is wrong.

So if you don't believe any first or second hand tales, and you don't believe I quoted, where are you getting your facts that Honda and Mazda have the same reilablity, because I have yet to find this anywhere? I qouted JD Power rating for reilabilty for three Mazda's and three Honda's from 2000 and clearly Honda was better ( averaging one more star out of five than Mazda), you still same they are the same... where are these facts you are speaking of? Who makes these facts (i.e. what company is backing these facts). JD Power is partian to GM, so between Mazda (a Ford company) and Honda they little concern with.

 
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Okay. Where to start? You've gone off on some kind of weird tangent. First off, I don't think Mazda has better quality than Honda, I never said that.

Subaru was a small company when it was introduced to the US, go look at old models like the Justy and tell me of the 6 car STi-including line-up they had. Of course I'm not talking about Subaru today. Yes there are car with 1-model line-ups only available overseas, but several small companies make it her too, look at the Lada Niva, every so often you bump into one of those things and ask yourself how that Soviet piece of junk made it's way here. But I digress.

I didn't say VW is good, I said it was bad, I -had- a VW, it sucked, I sold it, bought a Honda. I even said in the previous post that VW had bad quality, but I said they were addressing the issue as they are losing market share and any company thats losing market share addresses their problems.

I don't know what you think I'm trying to say here. I used the example of Hyundai, you haven't addressed that at all, yes, anecdotes can be helpful, but after a company improves the anecdotes persist, whether or not their based in reality that is inconsequential. I trust general trends I see amongst statistics, yes I know that Honda and Toyota make excellent vehicles, but the margin of quality dif. between them and Mazda I find acceptable taking into account that I think Mazda makes much more fun and enjoyable cars at a better price.

For God's sake read what I'm actually saying instead of what you think I've said. Thanks.

 
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When I was looking for a car last summer I had the Mazda3s 4-Door and the Civic EX Coupe as the two cars I had to choose between. I ended up choosing the Civic EX because basically my choice was about which car I could afford, where I could afford the Civic now rather than the 3s.

...I'm glad that I have the Civic now, considering I'm a commuter student in college and commuting with the Civic makes things easier financially (i.e. I don't have to pay as much for gas than with other cars!). But later on, after I graduate and all, I would take another look at the 3s again.


...and there's a boatload of aftermarket parts out there for the Civic!

 
Rep Power: 318

Thnak you... I was tring to read what you where saying, but it sounded to me you where saying Honda = Mazda for reilablity. Yes I agree that the gap is closing, but Honda is sitll on top, that could change some day, but all the rest of the manufactures have alot of catching up to do, and companies like Mazda are doing that by adding more performance for the buck, but I am still uncertain of the long term quality. If I was looking for car that I would have for say less than 100K miles, Mazda would certaintly be a choice, but I like to double that. On the other hand, I think the quality of the civic has gone down, this too has helped companies like MAzda, but this just IMO.

I am aware that you siad VW was bad, but it sounded like you siad just becasue I know some who had a bad car, I think the whole company is bad. I couldn't disagree more, I know someone that had 4 bad BMW's, yet I think BMW is still one of the best cars made. I am just sayin gthat if EVERYONE I know with a specific brand of car says it's bad, then it probably does have some problems, VW was jsut an example of a brand name.

As for the small comapny thing, yes companies like Subaru and Honda started off in the US as small companies, but that was over 30 years ago, back then (in the 70's) it was easy to introduce a small car becasue the American cars (the only car really around in the US in large numbers) where fuel hogs and these smaller cars gave for greater MPG at lowwer cost. In order to to enter a small company to the US, they must have something that the population needs or really wants at a cheaper price than the current compition can offer. Right now there is no such place, (i.e. if you want a really fuel effiecent car, but an civic HX that get almost 50 MPG, if you want cheap power, plenty of American car along with the EVO and STi offer that, if you want luxory, Lexus to Hyundai; basically everthing is pretty much taken buy comapnies with far more reasorces than they have. Honda and Subaru saw an ideal place to enter the market in the 70's during the oil crunch and did what any good business should do. Right now the US market has no need for anouther car company, hence a new company will be looked at as an unkown and people don't like to spend money on things they aren't sure of.

Speaking of Hyundai, no I will not address that company beacuse my uncle works there as one of their head auto designers, he also designed the 1st and 2nd generation eclipses. All I will say about them, and he agrees, is that they have found a nitch in that they can make car that looks like retarded jag or benz rip off and low income poeple love it because it makes them feel like they are getting somehing really nice. Kia has also found this to be true also. I am not going into reilablity or anything like that for Hyundai becasue I am obviously biased.