Great little car

I bought my Protege ES new in Sept of 2002 to replace a wrecked 2000 Honda Civic LX as my daily driver. I have owned Hondas, Alfa Romeos, and a BMW, but in my opinion, this one has them all beat. It doesn't seem to have quite the power or the build quality of the BMW, but it's nearly as much fun to drive and it's been far more reliable. Engine noise is greater than in the Honda everywhere from idle to full throttle, but it's a good noise and not loud enough to be bothersome. With only 130 bhp it's not a giant killer, but again, for a car in this class it's right in there. It usually feels quite spirited. When loaded down with passengers and luggage, you can definitely feel the performance degradation though.

Ride is good for this kind of car. You'll never mistake it for a luxury car, but neither would I describe it as rough or harsh. I would consider the ride to be excellent for a compact sport sedan. The suspension can be overwhelmed on extemely rough surfaces where it can feel like the car is shaking apart. To its credit, it really isn't shaking itself apart, but on some of these rural roads with patches on the patches on the patches and stutter bumps leading up to every stop and intersection, the ride is somewhat less than composed.

Handling is simply awesome. There is a reason why the Protege and its successor the Mazda 3, always win the comparison tests. The steering offers excellent feel. Turn-in is crisp. The car will take virtually any line you like with aplomb. Mid-corner corrections are a cake walk. Understeer is designed in for safety reasons, but it's not too bad and lifting off the throttle tucks it in nicely. The car is quite predictable as you approach the limits and gives more than ample warning before you actually get there.

I have but one real complaint - tires. The ES uses an odd-sized tire (195/50-16) that can be hard to find. In addition, the tires that are available have very poor tread life. That could be because the tire size dictates high performance tires, but tread life is poor anyway. I've had the OEM Dunlops, two different styles of Kuhmos, two different styles of Toyos, and one other set of some no-name tire I can't even remember (Federal I think, but I can't be sure). When you see where I wrote above that I'm approaching 100K miles, that should give you some indication of the mileage I'm getting out of my tires. Plan on replacing them every 15-20K miles. And oddly enough, especially for a FWD car, the rears wear faster than the fronts. With the front tires doing the driving, the steering, and the lion's share of the braking, you would expect the fronts to wear much faster. But my car has worn the rears faster on every set from every manufacturer.

My daughter has an additional complaint: the EM CD player won't play burned CDs. No problem with store-bought CDs, but it skips badly on every burned CD we've put in it. Multiple computers and several different software packages, but still no go. It jsut won't play burned CDs.

I really bought this car as a commuter and wasn't expecting it to be so much fun. But even after six years and close to 100K miles, it always puts a smile on my face.