I actually bought a car yesterday!!
But it wasnt the P5.
I ended up getting the new 2002 Neon LE cuz it was more in my price range.



thanks for all your info guys and its a great board but now i have to go look for neon canada.com
hahhaa

take care and drive SAFE!!!

 

i'm paying $450 cdn a month witha three grand downpayment so you got a better deal then i did

 

I'm paying about $360 a month for 3 years with a $13,000 down payment.

 

At first, I thought they were taking you for a ride, but then I saw you are from North of the Border. In C$'s, it seems you have a decent deal (assuming about a 1C$=0.65 US$ coversion).

Remember, Mazda is probably losing money on these small cars. They get their profits from the larger cars, Miatas, Mazda Credit financing, and extended warranties.

The dealers have about 8% of the sticker price + something called "holdback" to work with. If demand is high in Ontario or they're a small, low-volume retailer, they will not budge much on the margin.

Go to www.edmunds.com and check out their "True Market Value" calculator to see what the going price is for new MP5s with any combination of options (they may not have a Canadian version, tho).

The first (annoying) things you will notice once you come off the high of New Car Smell Fumes are the wind noises from the roofrack (solution = take them off), whistling from windshield wipers at high speeds (solution = none), water noise from the rear wheel wells when driving in rain, and maybe a cold start engine rattle that occurs at 2800 rmp in low gears for the first few minutes of driving (solution = forthcoming from Mazda????). I've just starting looking thru the threads of this group and it seems that a common complaint is that the front end paint gets knicked up sort of easily.

The good news is that you will love driving the car. I just came back from a trip to the Ozarks of Missouri/Arkansas where there are incredibly curvy and hilly roads -- talk about zoomzoomzoom. And I got 35+ mpg to boot.

I'll shut up now. Good luck.

 

I dunno how much dealerships are making on each Protege .. but it is Protege sales that is keeping dealerships in business right now in Canada.

I was in talking to the parts guy at a dealership and overheard one of the sales monkeys talking about how it is their "bread and butter" car at the moment...

Hopefully Mazda Canada top brass will realize this as much as the guys South of the border and wake up and bring us the Mazdaspeed stuff that is going to be in the USA.

 

well i went to 2 dealships and they both quoted me the same price ~26 000

 

what kind of options you are looking for?

 

well my car was 18,515 but i had the S-Plan so subtract 1100. i put 750 down and i pay 382/month. not bad considering i am 19 and taking in 600+ a week after taxes. i am quit pleased. i also own the 2002. i love this car and don't want to get a new except for the lancer evo VII which i may trade my P5 in

 

well, since Nada is not a Protege owner, I doubt they will read this but...

We bought a new 2000 Chrysler Neon LX a few years ago for the same reason (price & 0% financing). When my wife started a new job and we needed another car we picked up a 2002 Protege5.

Now we "share" the P5 and the Neon is sitting in the garage unregestered.