Hello everyone. I am going to lose my 2013 F-150 work truck in the near future and will need a vehicle to replace it as DD duty. Two cars are at the front of my mind currently, MS6 and MS3. The reason I am torn is due to the fact having a leather, loaded comfy cruiser like the MS6 is very appealing (6spd, leather, moon roof, awd, and turbo) over a more raw MS3.

I have seen some threads on here about both cars, and I figured I would ask on here for a more unbiased opinion rather than a straight Mazdaspeed forum. Does anyone own a MS6? Thoughts, comments, use as a daily, reliability, problems? I do know of the weak diff bushings and the smoking turbo stories.

Budget will be a max of 15k, and main restrictions are no rwd, manual, and no VW. These two cars are my main focus at this point so just trying to sort out if its worth looking at an older car (MS6 from 2006-2007) rather than a newer MS3 to get the comfortable daily. Thanks for any input.

 

Going off my own experience, the ms6 are nice cars but the few guys I know that have them are always having problems. But kept mostly stock you should be fine.

I've always heard good things about ms3's. Besides the fact that most of the ms3 crowd's owners are backwards hat wearing "bros".

For a DD, I would do the ms3. Way bigger pool of available parts and you can probably find a deal easier compared to the limited production of the ms6.

 

I've never been a huge fan of the MS3 mainly because I hate hatchbacks, but I know it doesn't take much to make them pretty fast. There's a guy that races AutoX locally with one and it's one of the more competitive cars in the region. I believe he also DD's it.

I would love to have an MS6 as a DD. IMHO the regular 6 from that generation was a fun car to drive, so the MS6 is that much better. From what I've seen the aftermarket is pretty limited though.

I guess it all depends on whether or not you want to leave it stock...

 

The car would be my daily, I have the miata for modding. Most likely the car would be stock except for fixing the rear diff and probably a tuner. I have not driven the MS6 yet, but did drive a 2012 ms3. The car was fun and quite nice, maybe I'm overthinking the leather seats and seat warmers.

The other appeal of the ms6 is it isn't a "bro" car. Its more mature and subtle while still pushing you back into the seat.

 

I don't think you can go wrong with either choice. Both are fun to drive Mazdas. But I think the ms3 will be cheaper overall just price and maintenance-wise, plus hatchbacks has so much room!

 

Does anyone own either? They both look great on paper, the hatch does make things tempting for the extra cargo.

 

My wife has a 2011 MS3, genpoo that is her daily. It's been a reliable car for us so far. Admittedly she has had it since 2011 and has only driven it 29k miles so that's not a great comparison. She does do some autoX and other than eating tires like there is no tomorrow there haven't been any gotcha's.

It belches black smoke a few times when it hasn't been flogged for a while, no idea what that's about.

My buddy had a ms6 on a lease. His car was not so problem free. He had issues with the trans/clutch and that was replaced under warranty. I believe his car also shat a turbo as well.

Overall great cars other then the few little weak points. For the pricepoint they are sold at they are tough to beat.

 

EErockMiata, you mentioned eating tires? Do you mean simply from high hp and fwd?

 

Indeed. We bought our car new... I managed to destroy the oem tires within the first 12k miles. Granted, I drive the car hard and with the TC off. I do quite a few canyon runs in her car in socal. For example I took the wifes car to the track once. I did 2/5 sessions and ultimately pulled the car because it was wearing the outside shoulder of the front tires so badly I thought I would ruin them (and anger the wife). Currently we're running gforce sport comp-2's.

Pro-tip... These cars are camber challenged. They need more than what you get from the factory (0) but too much and you can't put power down in a straight line. You can squeak out -1 degree by loosening stuff up and pushing/pulling on things.