Outside, the Protege sits on 16-inch alloy wheels, large foglamps and an oversized air dam to put it low to the ground. What’s easy to like is the interior and exterior details, a mix of supportive front and rear seats inside, a thick three-spoke steering wheel, dimpled vinyl on the dash and instruments that are tastefully lettered. At nearly 10 seconds in the 0-to-60-mph range, the Protege feels like it needs more than the 130 horses to get it going.
#2002 MAZDA PROTEGE ZIP#
It’s still a fun car to zip around in – precise shifting, high redlines – but it suffer s in all-out zip. With the added weight, the Protege5 comes with all the revs, but does not come with the results. Under the hood, there’s a new ULEV 2.0-liter engine, a stroked version of the previous 1.8-liter that adds eight horsepower from previous models. The Protege5 is a heavier ride than the sedan – about 80 pounds in wagon bodywork and a little more in structural changes – and that’s a problem when it comes to pull.
#2002 MAZDA PROTEGE DRIVER#
The driver is in command of the road, from start to stop, keeping things nicely centered just the same way the Protege impressed us six months ago when we drove the MP3 sedan. And wagonizing the Protege did nothing to blunt a rigid chassis and well-mannered grip. It is a mix of the Protege’s sharp lines, terrific steering and sharp handling – all things we loved about the Protege. With an extended roofline and increased cargo space, it is not the lowly wagon you used to make fun of. All new for 2002, the Protege5 is a five-door ride that Mazda hopes represents the next step as a sporty lifestyle hauler. It just doesn’t deliver all the gusto we’d like. All revved up, it still sounds like a real winner, a whiner more than a mover. It can still haul more stuff (the real point) than the sedan. Where the 2002 Protege5 is a great idea on paper, the wagon on the street is a great deal less powerful than we would have liked. That’s Protege5, as in the sporty little two-box version of the popular Protege sedan with more room yet still some zoom. And the company did it with a simple formula: Take a sedan that already works (the Protege), throw a “backpack” on the back end (rear hatch), and name it something familiar, with a numeric twist (the Protege5). As hard as it may be, Mazda has jumped in where few car companies have dared to go.
#2002 MAZDA PROTEGE DRIVERS#
What’s more, it’s the first in a long line of what’s to come: Mom-mobiles gone groovy that are meant to appeal to young drivers who want to haul things. No need to be embarrassed when you pull up to a light next to a Ferrari. Is it so? We will say it’s a lot closer than the wagons we remember. The automaker, which spent most of 2001 telling the world you could “zoom” your way to a better time, has created the better wagon. Zoom, zoom … huh? The last time we saw something called a “sport” wagon, Clark Griswold was trucking his way to Wally World in the family truckster, Carol Brady was speeding through syndication and, in the real world, wagons weren’t all that cool. An X indicates that the vehicle was not manufactured for a specific year.Hold on to your wood paneling, your car seat and your kids eating ice cream in the back seat, with special thanks to our friends at Mazda, “wagonizing” has become a sport. N/A indicates that we did not receive a large enough sample size to provide data for a specific year. Our subscribers provide great insights into their satisfaction by answering one simple question: If they had it to do all over again, would they definitely buy or lease the same model? In addition, respondents also rate their cars in six categories: driving experience, comfort, value, styling, audio, and climate systems. To learn about satisfaction, CR has collected survey data from our annual survey on more than half a million vehicles. An X indicates that the vehicle was not manufactured for a specific year. Based on this data and further analysis, we predict reliability for the latest year. Extra weight is given to the more serious areas such as major engine or transmission problems. The results are presented relative to the average model that year. Consumer Reports subscribers reported on any serious problems they had with their vehicles during the past 12 months that they considered serious because of cost, failure, safety, or downtime, in any of the trouble spots included in the table below. The reliability charts are based on responses on hundreds of thousands of vehicles from our latest Annual Auto Survey.
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