I miss my Mazdas

Yeah,that's my thing. I do so much driving,that I really need something like a small diesel VW,but at the same time,I also use my car for work sometimes. It's not nice getting all filthy at work and then getting into a nice clean beige leather interior and mucking it all up every time.

All I need is an ext cab Mazda that is FI and has power steering and a 5 spd and I'm happy. They just won't let me have an old vehicle as a daily because "they aren't reliable".

Who is this "they" you speak of?

And I know what you mean about just being able to throw stuff in the bed. I can't wait to get a truck.

"they" = parents and my grandparents who loaned me the money to buy a reliable car up to $6000 in the first place,but wouldn't co-sign for me to buy a new(er) vehicle with no/low milage and a full warranty.

Even though Kermit looked all done up and showy, underneath that tonneau cover was always full of tools,parts and random junk. He was just a stylish daily/work truck lol.

what is your job. how is a mazda not reliable. i can see how any carbed vehicle in canadas climate might have some starting porblems and what not but anything injected should be reliable as long as it was treated nicely throughout its life with regular maintenace.

they basically want me to get something that is no older than 5 years or so.

I do heating and air conditioning,and then for the last few months I've been parting out my truck and my parts and hauling stuff all over the place. When I had the truck and was buying new parts for it,I could just drive the truck,throw the new parts in the bed and be on my way.

I had all sorts of stupid problems with Kermit. The truck was 18 years old,and when I sold it,still had less miles than my Cadillac has.

In the 2 years I had Kermit,right after I bought it,a piston ring broke and I needed to rebuilt the engine. And it only had 80 000 miles on it!! Upon pulling the engine out,we discovered the clutch was pretty much toast as well as it was scarred and scratched beyond beleif,looking like someone was doing burnouts and stuff.

Got it all put back together,over $2000 later,and then my U-joints went...and my wheel bearings...and my exhaust cracked and broke 3 times before I had it completely replaced. All this is with less than 90 000 miles! Always had a hard time starting in the cold and was awful to use in the winter because I could never start it,or it would take forever.

I spent probably around $4000 on maintainance in 2 years. For the very low miles on it, it sure had a lot of major things go wrong.

Then I bought the ext cab. That thing was very reliable and it started great in the cold and was fantastic in the winter,and it was a carb. It had over 200 000 miles on it,but it had a miss in the engine and a lumpy idle and all the emissions controls were missing.

Up here,rust is also a big issue. Many things seize up, grounds go bad, floors and beds get rotted through obviously.

I don't know. I love the Mazdas because they look great,they are cheap and easy as hell to work on and fun to drive,and I also find them very comfortable. My grandpa loves his so much he won't even sell it to me.

They're also dirt cheap on insurance for me as well. I was paying like $84/mo for Kermit and now I pay like $210/mo for my car,plus $250/mo car payment.

Well that sounds like alot of money to put into just keeping a truck running. I think a laid out crew cab frontier would look sick. I wanted one but I'd hate to rip out the 4wd system (don't know if the crew cabs come 2wd) and don't need a v6.

Yeah. Because I spent so much money repairing the truck,I figured since everything was pretty much new and replaced,I'm in that deep,I may as well start going mod crazy. So Kermit is what I ended up with,lol

My next one will be alot like Kermit,but just a tad crazier.

hey mikey what was the final set up in the kermit (suspension wise)

thinkin about some of those esskies
just wondering if I would have to lift my truck up some so I could run them

(might lift it up any way till I get time to bag it)

AIM spindles,torsions cranked down a little bit, 3" blocks with monoleafs,but kept the overload...so more like monoleaf and a half,lol. It defietly needed a mini c notch,and I had to cut out the inside lip of the 4x4 fenders for tire clearance because the spindles push the wheels out further.

I was also running 205/40/17 tires. If I did it again,I'd probably go 215/45/17.