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I did drive a Fusion as a rental and when I braked hard the car fish tailed all over the place. But I agree that the car is so much tighter than many Asian cars and the interior I LOVED
Don't assess the car based on the rental. I have driven more rentals where the car was messed up and not reflective of how a new, correctly set car drives. I am not sure why, other than they tend to live a rough life and receive minimal care and maintenance.
For under $30K I would consider a low mileage (under 50k) 328i/335 with CPO (no worries until later on).
I had Maximas and Infiniti (G35X) and while they are tooted as closest to European handling, there is still a big difference IMO.
Another one is Audi that while very close to BMW's handling, offers nicer interiors. I would also look to find a nice one (under warranty) just under $30.
In my experience most of so called "reliability issues" with European cars, are due to lack of proper technical knowledge/training by the mechanics since European vehicles seems to be too complicated for the average mechanic...
Reason I try to persuade you away from the asian cars with "European drivability" it is because I was in your shoes about 3 years back when tired of high cost on European, I went for "reliability".
Big mistake in my end, after 6 months, I ended up losing money to get rid of my brand new reliable asian appliance...
Since life is too short, I accepted the risk of less reliability for the pleasure of driving...
There weren't many Mazda 6's sold, prior to this current generation. The old ones were kind of bland too, so you probably just don't notice them.
Actually it is the opposite. The 2002-2008 1st generation Mazda6 has outsold the current 2nd generation nearly 2 to 1. (1st gen averaged about 65K units a year, 2nd generation about 35K units a yer). Either way, that's over 10 years of Mazda6's, with more than sufficient volume to guage their longevity.
I don't see many old mazdas on the road with 200k miles. Do u guys?
I don't think you should make decisions based on anecdotal information like this. I have never seen a car with an odometer I can see from outside. So I have no idea how many miles any given car has. Mazdas are very good cars. And solidly reliable, it not quite where Toyota, Honda, or Subaru are.
I think most modern cars can go 200K miles with reasonable maintenance.
Mazda is a very small company, they sell 1.2 million cars a year. Toyota sells about 10 million a year.
"Very small?" Much smaller than Toyota, but 1.2M cars is hardly very small.
Ferrari is a very small carmaker. They make 7,000 cars per year.
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