Found a 2003 Mazdaspeed3...

I was looking at my favorite car sales/dealership website and found a Mazdaspeed3 with 50K+ for just under 10 grand. It appears to be genuine, but is now riding on 18 inch wheels, instead of the "factory" 17 inchers. It's black and the windows are heavily tinted black (not really legal). Racing Beat doesn't have much for this car, but has a couple of parts for "regular" Proteges.

Anyone have experience(s) with these pocket rockets?

Do you mean mazdaspeed 3 or mazadspeed protege?

I drove a mazadaspeed protege in 2004 as a leftover and it was great. I remember laying rubber coming out of the dealership by accident. wh00ps. I've since heard of reliability issues.

Ive driven both. Both are awesome. Speed3 happens to be way more awesome then the protege. But the protege can still hang and it handles Very good. Ive talked to many customers here that have traded up from a speed protege to an rx8 or speed3 and miss the protege.

I assume you are talking about a protege though because there is no 03 speed3. And speed 3's DO come with 18's from the factory.

as for 50k+ for close to ten grand i dont know. Your risking it. Really take a close look at how it was cared for. It is a performance car and someone has probably done a lot of "performance" driving in it. etc. etc.

The proteges really dont have many problems. Pretty much just the valve cover gasket usually always need to be replaced and sometimes the air intake hoses can get brittle and break and you get a code. The speed protege stock turbo wastegate actuator also fails fairly regularly and while labor is not that bad the actuator cost is. Youd probably be better off with a new turbo. Other then that you can rag the crap outta them and they will take it. Hope i cleared some stuff up.

Don't get a MSP expecting to turn up the boost like you can on most turbo cars. 200hp is about the ragged edge for a stock FSDE. Look out for evidence of boost controllers and whatnot, these motors are fairly easy to hurt with boost.

Other things to look out for:

• Some of the LSDs were unusually delicate, but if it were going to break it probably would have long ago.
• The racing beat rear sway bar tends to overpower the stock bushings resulting in clunky rear suspension. There's an upgraded sway bar bracket kit available from somewhere.
• The kenwood headunit they came with sucks, as did the rest of the audio system.

Now for some positives:

• Proteges have the best steering/handling of any econobox. The MSP has more power and even better suspension than a regular protege.
• Gas mileage is awesome
• Aside from the above stuff, there really isn't anything to break.

Sorry, yes, it is a Protege....and not the newer 3.

SCC had a "test drive" of one that I found right about the time I found this car. They suggested a bigger intercooler and less restrictive exhaust....then perhaps dialling up the boost. I'm not sure I'd want to buy a turbo-powered car if I didn't know the previous owner REALLY well. And yes, SCC said that as good as a Protege is in the handling department, the Speed Protege is a bit better and could easily handle the added power....most cars don't seem to fall into that category.

weird I was going to posst about the protege 5 I'm driving while on vacation, I loved it within .03 seconds of driving it, only problem is its an autotragic.

This same dealer has a Protege5 that I'm also looking at....52K miles, selling for $7K. It has the automatic, just how bad is the Mazda auto to live with? I'm currently driving an Integra with auto (not my 1st choice, when I bought it, but it was cheapish) but it does make a decent delivery vehicle. The 5 will also see duty as a delivery vehicle.

The P5's AT is a real Mazda unit and just doesn't break. The Mazdaspeed Propteges were great cars, I drove a couple when I was doing Mazda service and loved them.

I'd avoid a protege with an auto just because it removes most of the fun.