Those both look like nice P5s. Maybe a wee bit pricey, shop around more. The P5 effectively is equipped as a Protege sedan with the ES (interior upgrades mostly from an LX) and GT (spoilers and aluminum rims and 4 wheel disc brakes) packages, so there is some truth to the ads. But as everyone has said, only one trim level is available with the P5, unless......the leather package and chrome rims had a name, called special editiion or some nonsense, but it ONLY adds the leather and chrome blingy rims iirc.


PS - I love my P5, have had it for 5 years and 80000km. I agree it seems to be one of the most reliable cars I have ever had (knock on wood), and super fun to drive, even if it is underpowered compared to some other cars. I have a 5 speed, and have had the chattery clutch replaced - there is an official TSB for it on the Protege FAQ, so if you are looking at a 5 speed and it hasn't had the TSB done, you may be able to do it. It's not an actual recall so you have to ask for it or have the dealer suggest it if you have the issue.

Cheers,
Dale.

 

People keep complaining about the p5 being underpowered, but I don't have a problem with the power my 2002 5speed has. I have problems with wheel hop as it is. I bought this car as a daily driver, and it serves this purpose perfectly. It took me only a short time to find where the power band is for mine, and I find it has plenty of power, when needed, as long as I keep the rpm's in this range. In fact, I have a 89 Prelude S (dual carbs) for a winter beater, and after driving that, my p5 feels like a race car.

I highly recomend the p5.

 

Agreed. For DD, especially city driving, 260HP isn't necessary. It's fun of course but P5 is more economical. How much HP does the P5 pull? My friend's P5 seemed pretty peppy when we did a little run on the freeway.

 

It was rated at 135 hp. I have a couple of bolt ons (CAI, exhaust), but the gains were only slight from those.

 

IIRC they are about 98-100 @ the wheel

 

Power doesn't even matter to me, I just want something good on fuel runs smooth and cruises nice at 100 km/h, thats it. After reading some of the ads I now know I want all the power options, traction control(optional), trip tronic auto, 4 wheel disc with ABS and all the other luxuries. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can go around and check out a few, nothing local so will have to drive a few 100 miles to look at some. For a fairly nice one they seem around $13K.

 

Don't know where you are, but in my neck of the woods there are always a couple for sale. They range in price from about $8k up to $13k usd.

 

For Canada, all P5s will have the power windows, etc. and 4 wheel disks with ABS. Traction control, the auto, air conditioning, 6 disc CD changer and sunroof are really the only options.

13k seems like a better price point for a 2003 set up the way you want. Look in canadatrader.com and go across the country and see how the p5s are priced. It seems like they are low in Quebec, really high in Calgary, and somewhere in between everywhere else when I have looked.

Good luck!
Dale.

 

Well this may be a bit of a silly question but being a Canadian and living in the province of Ontario this question may only be pertinent to CDN members but how can I ensure that the car I find is 100% accident free? I do not want to buy a car that has any type of repair, a bumper bump is one thing but no major hits and I'm noticing most I find are not for sale on the major dealerships (Mazda, Toyota etc..) and I'm wondering am I safer only dealing with dealerships over private used car lots?

Thank you, just trying to be well prepared in case something comes up.

 

Do Canadian cars have VIN numbers like US cars do? Cuz if they do you should be able to run a CarFax report on it like you do in the US and find out everythind and anything you wanna know about that particular car.

 

I'm sure they have the exact VIN designation. I know on Honda the only difference was the '1' meant US and '2' meant CDN. Didn't know carfax was north america wide, cool some options.

 

The P5 ain't all that great on fuel mileage. Even when I try to be easy, it still gets in the low 20 mpg range. Some people report better, but I don't know how they do it. There are a few long threads on fuel usage, if you search.

 

Maybe you need to do a tune up or something. I average over 360 miles per tank with a combination of city and highway driving. And I don't drive like grandpa.

 

I consistantly get >400 miles and >30 MPG. And i drive it like i stole it!

 

I don't get that either. I've only gotten over 300 miles on a full tank of gas if I drove on the highway the whole way. I'm always filling up between 250 and 280 miles so hearing that some people get 400 miles is just insane to me. I don't drive it like a race car, but even when I drive like a grandma it only increases by about 1 or 2 miles per gallon.