Considering buying a Mazda 3 with a "low battery"

General Discussion
21

@MikeInNH

“Show me the small vehicle that’s going to give you the ride quality you’re describing.”

A plain jane Toyota Camry has the comfortable ride quality I want, but that’s mid-sized :wink:

And I would venture to say plenty of other people feel the way I do

My objective is to get to to work in fairly relaxed and comfortable fashion. I listen to the news on the radio. My objective is not to have fun driving. Maybe I’m boring, by your definition. Oh well :tongue:

The Mazda 3 does not allow that

My 1995 Corolla did not have a stiff ride. I wouldn’t say it was cushy, but it was definitely not a stiff ride

My 1997 Mazda Protege did not have a stiff ride . . . but that was built before the “zoom zoom” days :astonished:

22

Uncle Turbo writes …

Sitting uncharged causes the battery's internals to sluff lead off the plates and that can kill the battery pre-maturely. I suspect your battery is OK and if you use the car daily or a few days every week you won't have any problems.

I can vouch for that. My Corolla battery sometimes gets a little funky and balky on cranking if I don’t drive it enough distance between trips. Happens more during the coldest part of the winter, but sometimes during the summer too. I drive it I guess 4-5 times per week, but sometimes just a couple miles for the entire day. When I notice that balky crank thing happening I’ll put it on the battery charger for a couple hours each morning before I leave. On low current rate charge mode. After 3 or 4 days of this treatment, the battery is renewed.

23

My now gone Sienna to me is fun to drive. Fun means different things to different people. To me fun is leaving my McAllen mobile home (when I am forced to be there) in the morning knowing I will the next afternoon be on the east coast with no problems and getting at least 24 mpg. With all the junk I want in the back, including inflatable beds for some folks house and a cooler with plenty of food.

24

@irlandes Is the Sienna “gone” for a short trip or this is the final chapter?

25

Two signs the world is coming to an end:

  1. @irlandes gets rid of his Sienna
  2. @MikeInNH no longer owns a 4Runner.
26

But @irlandes bought another Sienna. It must be the start of another Maya long count calendar.

27

“This is the third or fourth post about CPO vehicles that reminds me that someone on this forum said that all CPO means that it is certified to be a used car.”

From my experience, part of that statement is entirely incorrect, the last part. My wife works for a car dealership and there exists a list of all items and standards that a certified car has to meet or exceed and the dealer uses it when they have technicians certify a vehicle.

Some can argue that a technician could fudge some of the items by checking a box without checking the car and that could happen, but I’m not too concerned because the car is being given a very good warranty based on the certification inspection and process. The certifying process costs the dealer $362 per car plus brakes, tires, etcetera, to bring it up to standards.

I easily pulled up the exact form that this particular manufacturer uses when they pay a technician to inspect and certify a vehicle. It’s all there to see. After the technician signs off on the car, a dealer service manager also signs off on the car. The car manufacturer is giving a warranty based on these folks’ work and if they cheat the system they could face some consequences. I can’t see them wanting to be in the middle of a fraudulent certification. If a car isn’t worthy it simply becomes a used car. They have those, too.

I have purchased CPO cars and have used the extensive extended warranty coverage. It worked great, at no cost to me. The fantastic warranty that many manufacturers provide makes the difference between used and CPO. Not all manufactures provide the same CPO warranty coverage. Some are much better than others.

Get the certification list and look the car over. Some things can be inspected by a novice. Try and find anything questionable and if you can, question it.

It’s not really all that amazing. There are lots and lots of really good CPO car out there, trust me, I know.
CSA

28

One Caveat, Make Sure Or Have A Professional Make Sure That The Car Has Not Been Involved In A Collision And Repaired Or A Flood.
CSA

29

One fallout of this is: if a dealer sells both CPO cars and regular used cars, the used cars will tend to be low quality, as some (most? all?) of those are ones that failed the CPO inspection.

30

@BillRussell

Not necessarily

If an excellent car is above the mileage limit, it will be sold as a regular car, not CPO

If a car is in excellent shape, but has new Big O tires . . . and it’s a Benz or Bimmer, for example . . . they will either have to “find” appropriate Michelins or Contis to mount, or it will be sold as a regular used car

In my experience, if a trade-in, lease return needs a set of new tires, that is often “too costly” and it becomes a regular used car. There are x amount of dollars allotted to each cpo candidate, and a set of tires is too expensive. Buffing out a scratch, detailing, etc. is still okay

When I said “find” I meant this . . . if they have a regular used car with new Michelins of the right size, they might swap them with the other car, so that at least one of them can be sold as CPO

If the trade-in, lease return, etc. has an aftermarket windshield installed, it might not be eligible for CPO

any evidence of accident repairs, frame straightening, etc., usually rules out CPO, even if the work was first-rate

If a car has 70,000 miles, and the cut-off for CPO is 60,000 miles, it won’t even be inspected for CPO consideration. Therefore, it didn’t “fail” anything.

In my experience, many/most of the regular used cars didn’t fail the CPO inspection. They just weren’t candidates in the first

What if I trade in a 2 year old Camry with 30K miles to a Honda dealer, because I want a new Accord. The Camry will be a regular used car. Just because it’s not cpo, doesn’t mean it’s low quality. People switch brands all the time.

31

“One fallout of this is: if a dealer sells both CPO cars and regular used cars, the used cars will tend to be low quality, as some (most? all?) of those are ones that failed the CPO inspection.”

Not necessarily failed any CPO inspection, at all. First, CPO vehicles must be fairly new, model-years wise. I know that some cannot be older than 6 model-years, and there is a mileage limit, too. Used cars can be whatever. So, some used cars cannot even be considered for CPO.

Also, dealers can only certify there brands. So, they could have some nice late-model, low miles cars of another brand that they are selling as used.

Some vehicles can come from lease turn-ins, trades-ins, enterprise fleet or rental cars, or bought at auction, for example.
CSA