I am a big fan of my Mazda 3, as I own a lot of cars, some are high end and some are right in the middle. This car has been my workhorse for a couple of years now for a reason. It is extremely comfortable and great on gas and has been probably the lowest maintenance vehicle that I have ever owned.

Overall, the car is great in every way I was concerned about. I bought it used at about 13,000 miles, and so far I am up to around 35,000 and have had no issues with it whatsoever. It always starts, runs, and performs reliably, with no strange behaviors or noises that give me concern. Everything has held up well in the interior, and the only slight issue I have had with it was the dashboard looking like it was starting to warp in the heat--right after I was wondering about it; however, I got a recall notice in the mail saying that it is an issue that will be addressed and I can go in to get a free replacement dash. The car gets on average 28-30 mpg, so fuel economy is pretty nice, and the car in general sits right in the middle of style, performance, usefulness, and economy. The main reason I purchased the hatchback option was so that I would have room to do a variety of things, be it grocery shopping or hauling bigger quantities of things. So far I've been able to fit music equipment in it, construction equipment for a remodel (once bought a new toilet and vanity, along with some other supplies in the same trip, and they fit no problem after folding the back seats down), and plenty of moving boxes. The most satisfying thing was being able to fit a 5-6 foot Christmas tree inside the car and close the trunk, with my girlfriend sitting in the passenger seat. Another thing I love is the manual mode on the transmission: it's an automatic, so I get the convenience of that, but I also have the option to kick it into a manual mode, in case I need to downshift to accelerate faster or stop more quickly. With that feature, this car seems to have eliminated my one issue that I've had with automatics.