It took a good deal of research and bargain-hunting, but I finally joined the Mazda family by way of a 2016 MZ3 s Grand Touring 6MT. This gray boi rolled off the truck yesterday from Georgia.
That's crazy - I hit a bear recently too! It was a pretty skinny bear and was standing on the side of the road in front of a rug store holding a "Going Out of Business Sale" sign. I hope it was okay, but I didn't want to pull over to check because it seemed pretty pissed off (dropped the F-bomb on me, which I didn't know bears could do).
Oof, that sucks. I had a chub for the GTI and Jetta GLI for awhile before I decided on the Mazda, but the fear of German upkeep a few years down the road ultimately scared me off.
I would keep that sumbitch forever!Thanks friend
CX5s are great too, I'm trying to talk a coworker into one. I'll pass along your overwhelming joy 
Years ago I had a '95 Audi and the guy at the shop told me it would be $400 for an Audi OEM hydraulic hose. Just for the part. Basically a 1 foot long rubber hose. It was out of warranty, so he just used a regular (non-Audi) rubber hose and charged me a few bucks for it. But after a string of Saab-Audi-Audi, it's been Honda/Acura for me since. I might go for a Mazda or Subie or something for my next car, but I'm staying in Japan thank you very much.
Even better yet. Japanese quality made by Americans. BTW, I learned (at Hofstra) that post-WW2 some innovative American operations types who could not get their quality-based production ideas adopted in the US ended up implementing them in Japan (they were receptive to the ideas and were basically rebuilding all industries). Anyway, whether it's cultural or manufacturing techniques or whatever, be it cars, electronics, cameras/lenses, watches, etc., it's hard to beat the stuff that comes out of Japan.
You'd think American-made Japanese would be great, but unfortunately not always the case. For example when Nissan started building Maximas and Altimas here instead of Japan, the quality unfortunately took a nosedive. They were also heavily-revised models with lots of new parts so you can't just blame the assembly, but it can't be ruled out as a factor.
OOF. My Maxima was at almost 175k and still on its original clutch, master & slave cylinders, even the factory gear oil fill. Honda unfortunately has had a lot of quality issues with their transmissions over the past 15 years or so, both automatic and manual, and they've made it worse by trying to pretend the problems don't exist in a lot of cases.
A lot of the lack of interest in SPC by U.S. automakers was due to their model of planned obsolescence, thinking everyone would just dispose of the crap after 4-5 years and buy a new car, not realizing that the Japanese were about to blow them out of the water with quality and price. The Japanese also went small in size and that paid off when the gas crisis hit in the 70's and the U.S. industry was still selling boat sized cars. To this day, I don't think the U.S. auto industry has recovered.
