Ride of the Month: 2004 Mazda6s Kiwi
For the first Ride of the Month, we start with one of my previous rides. No, not because I’m a narcissistic young guy who thinks I’m awesome. I just hope this will spur some readers to submit their own unique rides for others to admire. If you have a nice whip that you’d like to share with the world, send us a few pictures and a short story!
My friends affectionately called my 2004 Mazda6s “Kiwi”, in reference to the rare green hue. It had a 220 HP 3.0L V6 paired with a 5 speed manual transmission. When I first saw the ad for the car, I actually told a good friend that it was the ugliest color ever. That might have been the best self-jinx of my life, since I ended up buying the car for cheap and fell in love with the color after a while. It was just different enough from typical vanilla family sedan colors (white, beige, silver, black, etc) without being gaudy. It was just dark enough to have a beautiful reflection, but hid dirt very well.
Honestly though, we’re not here to talk about cars with nice paint. Luckily, it wasn’t just the paint that I ended up loving about the car. The whole package was just so remarkable that I still kick myself for selling it. The exterior design is absolutely stunning. The taut headlights, subtle sport package bumpers and spoilers, muscular flared fenders, and the classic 17” 5 spoke wheels all come together beautifully. It is quite possibly the only car I’ve ever owned that looked perfect to my eyes, in stock form.
Mazda worked more magic on the inside, where high-end details were plentiful. My favorite among them were the chrome trim rings in the instrument panel – I have no idea why, but this always looked classy to my eyes. The sporty 3 spoke steering wheel was a joy to handle. It was perfectly weighted and responsive, quick but not darty. It was connected to a suspension that had BMW levels of poise. Some roll was present, but the body motions were always well controlled. Mid corner bumps never upset the chassis, and understeer was never an issue. Even with the low profile 17” tires, it rode very smoothly and quietly. The most prominent disturbance at highway speed was intake growl, which is what happens when you remove the intake resonator as I did.
Despite all my raving about the car, it did have flaws. Throttle response was artificially slow, as was typical of cars with early renditions of electronic throttle. The V6 sounded gnarly but was a little short on low-end torque. Short gearing meant it was always revving, which got annoying on the highway. The interior is smaller than a typical CamCord family sedan, which may or not be okay depending on who you ask. The black leather felt like plastic and was one of the reasons I wanted to sell it. The biggest reason was that I was about to move to the Mojave Desert, and there was no Mazda dealer in town. I couldn’t afford for my only vehicle to be down for repairs.
It was looking more and more likely that it would need repairs, too. Forums were constantly ablaze with $1500 clutch replacements, because of the undersized clutch that Mazda used to save money. More worrying was the engine’s habit of self-immolation for no apparent reason. Rumors swirled around the $10 PCV valve, which let the engine quickly burn all of its oil when it failed. No matter what the reason, I simply couldn’t chance breaking down on a deserted highway or spending $6000 on a new engine while not having a car to get to my new job.
The ad went up on craigslist, and it sold in 3 days for my asking price. The new owner got a steal. Their family mechanic inspected the car, and they had to dig deep to find even the smallest detail wrong with it. I had used the best oils and transmission fluid so that someone else could reap the benefits. They even got pretty new tires in the deal. I’m sad to have lost her, but it makes me happy knowing that they’re enjoying the car as much as I did That’s what Kiwi was best at – making her owners happy.