The "sport suspension" consists of the strut brace. Everything else is the same.

All else being equal (which the ES is), the sedan will outhanble the P5 due to its lighter weight and stiffer unibody.

 

but remeber the p5 looks tight as hell , and you can always tighten that suspension up with some good ol suspension parts
Bruce

 

dude....
get them to throw in the GT pacakge. i got them to that. the package comes with 16" rims, rear disc breaks, moonroof, spoiler and AC.

 

Wow, they actually gave you that? Hmm, guess I could give it a shot... definately worth a try...

 

The sportmatic is not available in Canada. And earlier in this post someone mentioned the Sentra SE-R specV. Up here the specV is more money than the protege5 and all sentras are built in Mexico. They have also had like 3-4 recalls already.

2002 MBlue P5

 

Hello all, I just joined this forum. I looking for some opinions here. I looking into pruchasing as Protege ES, but when I looked at the horsepower and torque it seems pretty low. I would like to know if you feel if there's enough power in your Protege ES. Also will Mazda add a little more power in the engine like 10+ more hp?

 

Just bought a P5 for my wife (to be picked up Tuesday) ... we had looked at the sedan as well, but there was no contest in term of both practicality of a hatchback and the P5s 'zoom zoom' factor. The P5 won hands down, although an ES sedan would have been $1000-$2000 less. Went with automatic, as I'm not into teaching my wife to drive a standard (and she has no desire to). I know, many will groan and say bad choice, but we test drove one and it didn't seem sluggish to me (and a 'feature' of automatic is being able to drink your coffee or talk on the phone while driving, activities not possible - safely- when driving a manual shift in the city).
Not sure where in Canada you are, but in the Toronto area my local Mazda lot is overflowing with cars, around 20 of them P5s in all colours.

 

FrankD, welcome to the board. But please don't talk on the phone while driving. Everyone, if drinking coffee and talking on the phone are high on your list of priorities please take the bus. Just because the protege5 has some neat SUV features doesn't mean people should drive like it is an SUV.

 

I hate driving standard, and talking on the phone and eating all in the same time.... that's why I sometimes just hang up on people hehe

Well it all depends, lots of people like the P5 looks better then the sedan. Myself, I like the sedan's back better, but I just miss the front of the P5. That's why MP3s embody the best of both worlds.
Sedan is about 3,000$ cheaper I think with both of them fully loaded. Make sure that you get the spoiler on the sedan as it looks much tighter with it.
Tons of people like P5s looks a lot though, but again, it's all up to you. What rocks/floats your boat? Is it your cup of tea? okay, I'll stop hehe

 

Buy the p5. I have hade mine for about 5 monthes now and I still stare at it and think " what a hot car" . Sedan didn't have the looks I wanted. Don't get me wrong I think they look good , but not as good as the p5. More room , roof rack, alloys. You might pay a little more a month , but what the hell.