There was a time in my life when spending four grand on a car seemed like an impossibility. Sometimes even four hundred was a stretch. These days, it’s about what I would pay for a “good” car. Once you hit the $3-4000 range, it seems to me that a car should be presentable, and shouldn’t need anything besides an oil change and maybe a wash. Big numbers on the odometer are still to be expected, but so is an absence of warning lights on the dash.
Yesterday’s price cap was half that, so we looked at Toyota-designed cars that avoid much of the “Toyota tax” by being badged as GM cars. As I could have guessed, the Pontiac Vibe took an easy win. Its hatchback body style and two-generations-newer platform sealed the deal for a lot of you, it sounds like.
But I’m going to swim against the stream here, and cast my vote for the Chevy Prizm. Between these two particular cars, it just feels like the better deal. It has fewer miles, and the ad feels more honest. Besides, the instrument panel in the Vibe bugs me. I never did warm to that “2000s Soundesign dorm room stereo” style that so many dashboards had around that time.
If you’re looking for a practical and reliable car for about four grand, I think you’d be doing yourself a disservice not checking out some minivans. They’re roomy, practical, and tend to depreciate a lot quicker than SUVs and crossovers. They’re not cool, and uncool cars tend to be bargains. Today we’re going to look at a big comfy Honda van, and a smaller, sportier Mazda.
2012 Mazda 5 Sport – $3,999
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5 -iter DOHC inline 4, five-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Waukegan, IL
Odometer reading: 143,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Mazda has always done the minivan thing on its own terms. The original MPV was a rear-wheel-drive vehicle with conventional doors, when every other van on the market had sliding doors. The second-generation MPV was closer to what most manufacturers were doing, but with a distinct Mazda flair. It was discontinued after 2006, supposedly replaced by the CX-9 crossover, but Mazda also offered this little charmer. Most minivans haven’t been exactly “mini” for a long time, but the Mazda 5 is within a few inches of the original Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager in all dimensions. It’s the perfect antidote to the bloat that so many vehicles have suffered from in recent years.
The Mazda 5 is based closely on the Mazda 3, only taller and with sliding rear doors. It’s powered by a 2.5 liter MZR four cylinder that makes 157 horsepower, and a five-speed automatic transmission. This one has 143,000 miles on it. It’s being sold by a dealer, so of course we get more information about its features and options than its condition. I have to assume it runs all right, or they wouldn’t be offering it for sale. No dealership is going to stay in business for long with that kind of bait-and-switch.
Despite its small size, the 5 is a six-passenger vehicle with three rows of seats. If you don’t need all that seating, you can fold down the back seats and use it for cargo room. It’s in good shape inside; the ad includes photos of all three rows, and I don’t see anything beyond minor wear.
It looks nice and clean outside, but Mazdas have an unfortunate propensity for rust, and this car is in the Chicago suburbs. Take a good look underneath and make sure it looks solid.
2013 Honda Odyssey EX-L – $3,895
Engine/drivetrain: 3.5-liter OHC V6, five-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Fridley, MN
Odometer reading: 254,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
If you’re looking for a van in a more conventional size, here we have a fourth-generation Honda Odyssey. It’s two feet longer and several inches wider than the Mazda. That extra size means extra comfort, and more room to spread out. Minivans are good road trip machines, and this one has definitely seen some roads: it’s just north of a quarter-million miles.
It’s powered by Honda’s 3.5-liter V6, which drives the front wheels through a five-speed automatic. Earlier Odysseys had trouble with their transmissions, but as far as I know that problem was sorted out by the time this one was built. With as many miles as it has, if the transmission was an issue, it would already have been rebuilt or replaced by now. The seller says it runs and drives well, and that it has new brakes, and just had an oil change.
This EX-L model is two rungs from the top of the ladder, but I can’t imagine wanting anything fancier than this. It has leather seats, power everything, and some cool gadgets like a built-in cooler that’s chilled by the air conditioner. It has two rows of captain’s chairs and a third row three-seat bench, for a total capacity of seven. It’s all in good shape, especially for the mileage. Minivans seem to fall into two categories: they either haul kids and kid stuff around and end up trashed inside, or they get used for business, and only the driver’s seat sees any use. This one appears to be the latter.
This generation of Odyssey isn’t the prettiest thing on the road; I never have understood that rear side window shape. But it’s in good condition. I don’t see any rust or serious damage. The panel gap between the front bumper and front fender doesn’t look quite right, though; did it get bumped on the nose at some point, I wonder?
These might not be as cool as an SUV would be, but they’re at least as practical. And at least one of them gets a whole lot better mileage. For four grand, you could do a lot worse. Which one appeals to you?
I had the previous generation Odyssey. It did indeed have a glass transmission. And a lot of other issues. (In fairness to Honda, I bought it used and discovered much lipstick had been applied to the pig.)
So Mazda day. I like tidy-size minivans anyway.
Always liked that actual-mini minivan, and I trust the Mazdas we’ve had with my life, so there ya go.
I’m picking the Honda with the express hope that the transmission does go out so a 6 speed from a donor Honda can be swapped in.The part of me that lives in reality would gladly take the Mazda and daydream away about what might have been.
I’ve had 2 Odyssey’s, so I’d go Mazda. Always wanted one with a manual, but this’ll have to do.
The 5 is better. Easier on gas, not a transverse V6, and a better transmission too 😀
This time, I have to vote zoom-zoom over VTEC 😛
Homda
Well now I’m regretting rejecting the manual Five a couple weeks ago, but I’ll still take the automatic with 100k fewer miles and less space I don’t need. And I agree with Mark, that was a fugly Honda.
With 3 kids whose cars have a total of 800k miles, I bought a standby Mazda5, < $3k, 96k miles. I remembered how much I loved driving rented Mazda3 in my traveling days. It’s a Mazda3++. We added a Crutchfield Apple CarPlay which was a magical transition to the present. For 3 weeks, my carpenter son, had a reroof job which he was given the stripped copper sheets; scrap $ paid for Mazda5.
We own a ’12 Mazda5 with the 6MT. We bought it new exactly 15 years ago this month!
However, I will caution would-be owners of one…….
The automatic is gutless. The stick makes it more fun and *feel* faster, but the auto sucks all that life out of it.
Rust is a major concern. Ours had none because I’m a bit of a lunatic with putting older cars on the lift and hitting all seams with Fluid Film. However, after ours was rear-ended and wrecked, I bought a “parts” car to put all the good parts of mine into. Basically, I transferred everything over to the new shell that wasn’t wrecked. However, that parts car has bad rust. Like, difficult to put on a lift level of rust. All in the rockers.
Watch for rust, but overall, the cars are incredibly reliable and we love(d) ours.
I think Mazda switched their steel source around 2010. I haven’t seen any rusty Mazda 5s in my midwest area. The 2.3L Mazda 3’s tend to dissolve much faster.
Edit: I regret that my spouse’s foot injury and low manual trans experience led us to the automatic trans. It is not great, but is fine for the price point. Seriously, this thing swallows cargo! I have a roof rack and only used it for drywall panels and some scouting camping trips with a roof box.
People want the TARDIS. Bigger on the inside than the outside. You can’t have it both ways. You want room, the vehicle needs to grow. For this one, I went with the Honda as it has more general use scenarios.
The Oddity is more vehicle for less money, but it’s got that awkward DLO an extra hundo on the odo. Since I don’t need that much vehicle and I’ve always thought the 5 was a good little van, the Mazda’s an easy pick for me today.
GenX people- if you have to haul the ‘rents to and fro doctor appointments, take a good hard look at the M5. My dad had mobility due to strokes. The sliding rear door, seat height, door height and grab handles/ armrests would have been a pretty good setup for his situation. But mom insisted on an Outback, which was *terrible* for people with mobility issues. She had to sit in the front because, mom, (and obesity) and getting dad in the back was a pain because of the narrow foot space, lift-up height, and generally cramped back seat. But “it sits high up” and that’s all she could see. The cargo area also has a high liftover if you have to haul a walker or transport chair. I hated that car- and it got worse once you had to drive it (2.5 drone, CVT, floppy ride).
In my experience of dealing with aged parent and grandparent, the aged and decrepit have a hard time climbing up into CUV/SUVs, and even the not-so-minivans. Tall hatches like this and the Soul are much better for them. Perfect chair height seating. Shame we don’t really get many in the US. Are there any currently?
My family went from a VW Routan to a Prius V, and it was much easier for my aging grandparents to get in and out of, and my no spring chicken at the time Mother to drive them around in. A Mazda5 would likely have been an even better choice with the sliding doors, but I they LOVED the efficiency of the Toyota and it worked out well. Shame my nephew killed it.
I absolutely despise Outbacks and Foresters for so many reasons. Modern Subarus in general just do not agree with me.
I tried to at least get them in a Forrester, because of the squareness of the roof and door openings, and the rake of the windshield doesn’t impede so much into the door opening. (Imagine you’re 80, have had 3 strokes, wear a leg brace, then you have to balance on right foot, lift left foot to clear high ground clearance, while simultaneously ducking your head not to bump it.) But the Forrester was “too small” because boomers still think bigger is better when it comes to cars. Nevermind function, usability, ergonomics, visibiility, etc. etc. You’re right though that Souls are pretty close to ideal. Ford Flex would have been good, but too big and Mom would have crashed that into everything, most likely the garage.
My mid-70s Mom test drove every car in the $30K and under price range, and the Soul was the one she liked the best – it wasn’t even close. And bonus, it was the second cheapest. They are pretty much the perfect Granny-mobile (and she would slap me into next week if she saw me refer to her as a Granny, LOL).
I am actually shocked she didn’t crash that Routan, she absolutely hated driving it, and the Ford Freeturd van it replaced. Her own car at the time was an ’83 BMW 528e, but she was the live-in caretaker of both my grandparents and her stroke victim husband at the time, so they needed something to haul the old(er) folks around in. She has managed to bang up the Soul, once her fault pulling into her condo spot, and once being back into at Walmart. And her previous Camry was backed into at Walmart too. And people wonder why I refuse to shop there…
Hard to argue against either. I voted for the Odyssey mostly out of pro-Honda bias. I have had very good luck with Honda products, as have my family. This one has high miles, but I’m not concerned if it runs good at the moment and looks good.
So far this week, my takeaway has been that $4,000 is probably the best price point for cheap cars. Monday’s cars were terrible. Tuesday’s cars were ancient and kind of gross, but not terrible. Today’s vehicles are not ancient, terrible, or gross – they are just depreciated. It will be interesting what the rest of the week brings, but if in the future I need cheap wheels I’ll go for a Wednesday car.
I feel like another grand or two will get you nicer and lower mileage. But this Mazda feels like a bit of a bargain. The Honda has the Honda tax on it with the to-the-moon mileage. I trusted RWD Volvos back in the day with a quarter million on them, but those are cars you can fix with a hammer. This modern van, not-so-much. I suspect that thing is SERIOUSLY ropey underneath. Especially given it’s in salty MN, and not subject to any kind of safety inspections in that state.
Yeah, the Mazda probably is the better deal. I still prefer the Honda, though. It is high miles, but it is ~20k miles per year on average so presumably that includes a lot of easy highway miles. I don’t see this as all that different from a 175k Honda Oddyssey, assuming it was maintained.
I’m less bothered by Minnesota rust than a lot of people, mostly out of personal experience. I lived there for a while and have owned several upper midwestern vehicles that haven’t had substantial rust. Modern vehicles handle salt reasonably well if you wash them regularly. My Minnesotan parents own a Honda Odyssey that is a few years newer than this one; that vehicles doesn’t have significant undercarriage rust. I’m sure a few bolts are rusty, but that is the mechanic’s problem and not mine.
I’m from Maine – I am DONE with rust, LOL. And for my cars, I AM the mechanic other than in exceptional situations. So I don’t want to deal with it at all anymore. I love that the undersides of my cars are *shiny* for the most part.
I’m more concerned about not having to have somebody who knows at least something about cars look at the thing occasionally. The horrors I see in cars from states with no annual inspection… The average punter has an amazing ability to ignore serious issues until the car doesn’t actually move, or something falls off.
Yeah, I have definitely seen (and owned) a few cars with substantial rust issues. Again, I can only speak from my personal experience, but cars after 2000 seem to be corrosion resistant to the point where regularly washing them can actually prevent substantial rust from developing (unlike older vehicles where you were SOL no matter what you did). Obviously, I’m looking for rust on a used car no matter where it comes from (I presume even some Arizona cars end up with rust) and no matter how little I intend to work on it myself.
We will have to agree to disagree on the utility of state inspections. I lived in a state that required annual safety inspections and it was, frankly, worse than useless. They would fail you for stupid things but allow properly dangerous stuff to pass. I had a project truck that genuinely wasn’t safe that I was able to get passed without even offering a bribe – I figured it was at least going to cost me a twenty, and probably a fifty.
Perfect should not be the enemy of good. I think Maine does it pretty well, but it’s far from perfect. In my ideal world the STATE would do the inspections, with zero repairs being allowed, just an inspection, pass/fail, go get it fixed it if it fails. Completely impartial. With private shops doing it, and being forced by law to do it for FAR below the cost of thier time if they are doing it properly, they are too incentivized to find stuff to fail you on, or take advantage of the uninformed with unnecessary repairs. But I still want somebody with a clue looking at every damned car on the road at least once a year. Too many rolling deathtraps out there. Even here in Florida where undercarriage rust isn’t a thing, just looking at all the bald tires walking around a parking lot is shocking. There are some scary looking heaps roaming around here – and if they look that bad on the top, imagine what shape the brakes and suspension are likely in? No muffler, busted out glass, non-functional lights. In theory the cops can give fix-it tickets, but they rarely do.
I do agree that cars are MUCH better than they used to be, but rust still takes a toll, and some vehicles still suck for rust protection, or especially for the quality of thier nuts and bolts even if the sheet metal is better protected. Just being able to remove suspension parts with hand tools as I did when refreshing my BMW’s suspension last year is reason enough for me to have no interest in cars from up north anymore. I admit I am spoiled. 🙂
I get what you are saying about state inspections, but I still have to disagree. Yeah, I see a shitbox or fifty up here in Pinellas, but I don’t see that translating into accidents. Given some states have inspections and others don’t, it should be relatively easy to demonstrate that inspections improve safety. So far, I haven’t seen any studies that show this conclusively, and I looked into this a few times.
I’m not against safety inspections, but I am against laws that cause inconvenience without substantial benefit.
I actually picked up a mazda5 last year to daily. With one kid and two medium sized dogs, it’s been perfect. Average 26.5 mpg on my daily commute. I added an Apple CarPlay radio and small subwoofer. NVH is up there but my other car is a JLUR so I can’t really complain much. I’d probably keep it forever and run it to the ground but my wife is anti-minivan and we mostly end up taking her car.
If no rust, the Mazda. A $5 can of carpet and upholstery cleaner from Walmart and a couple hours and a vacuum cleaner on a Saturday afternoon would do wonders on that interior. The Honda is fine, but more miles, and I just don’t need that big a vehicle.
Voted Mazda, as I’ve had a great experience with a contemporary and mechanically similar Mazda3. I don’t need to haul a lot of stuff, but I need to park in tight city spaces, so a shorter van is important.
Mazda 5 for me. Better fuel economy, no dealing with how fun working on a transverse V6 can be and it has far less mileage.
I took the Honda cause the Mazda isn’t one of the stick shift ones. If it was, instant winner.
The Mazda would probably suit me just fine at this stage of life, but after having driven/owned a couple of minvans in life, I am more in the camp of big and comfy.
Take the Ody. 254K is nothing on that motor. Short money to haul lots of stuff.
I am certainly biased – owning a 2015 Ody with 207K. Just did the timing belt, so ready to go another 100K before another major service (and the regular maintenance isn’t awful)
Oh right – one more reason to get the Mazda. The MZR is a timing chain, so according to our very own David Tracy it’s the more reliable motor 🙂
Really, though, it is an excellent motor. It also doesn’t have the oil starvation/cylinder deactivation issue that the Honda can have.
Just curious, what did the t-belt service run you? My first thought when I saw the Oddy was to add at least 1K to the price as it’s likely due for a belt change.
My mom has a 2020 MDX with this engine, she plans on getting rid of it before it’s due for the belt.
$1200 via my local indy shop. I’ve seen some locals go for a little less, but not much. Aiming to get another 12-18 months out of it – so, $100/month car payment. FINE.
I don’t love this era of Odyssey but I chose the Honda anyway because if I get a van its going to be for hauling building materials! I know these had issues with oil and probably the transmission but pending a HARD test drive I think it would probably be alright.
The Mazda looks nice for the price assuming its not actually rusty underneath (photos look good!), but we are new house shopping and I will want something that can haul drywall that’s protected from the elements.
I would have taken the Mazda anyway because I don’t like driving large vehicles. But something’s wrong with that Honda. The owner did the brakes and then discovered something expensive that needs fixed and wisely didn’t succumb to the sunk cost fallacy.
That’s a great price for a non-rusty 5. I would take that, even though it’s unfortunately a sad gray color. That 5 probably has plenty of life left in it where the Odyssey either has another 100k in it or 2k in it and nothing in between.
Mazda5 for me. Not that I think the Honda is a bad choice. However I don’t generally need a vehicle as large as the Honda, and the few times a year I do need one I can just borrow a pickup and trailer or a small flatbed from work to grab building supplies or furniture or whatever.
I’d just learn to live with the rear end clunk that these are prone to.
I’ve had all kinds of building supplies inside my Mazda5, and once put a 60″ vanity inside.
But I also put a $100 hitch on it in my driveway and use it to tow a small utility trailer for bigger stuff, including a couple trips to get a yard of soil. It’s a way better system than owning a pickup or big “mini”van.
I once fit a new in box dishwasher in my first gen Kia Soul, and a new vanity in my Protege5. Although the vanity may have been flat packed, it was in 2009 and I honestly can’t remember. It is amazing what a small hatch will hold.
Hitches on small cars are a wonder, but some people are baffled. I stopped at a Sheetz in WV or western PA last summer and Cletus at the pumps was all asking me about what I could “pull” with my Focus. I said it was for a bike rack but I also moved a sofa and other furniture with a borrowed utility trailer. Poor thing was perplexed.
I’m a massive proponent of small cars doing “big car” things. I’ve definitely pushed it with my Madzda5, but it’s always carried everything I throw at it and has done it reasonably well.
Personally, the visible knock-outs in the front fascia are calling for some driving lights, and it could use some more lights and a rack on the roof. Put a hitch and some +1 sized “all-weather” tires on it and it’s ready for duty. I think this is the lower trim model, I don’t see heated seat controls, and I like moonroofs, but it’s still decent. (Stylistically, I also prefer the 1st Gen but one can’t be too picky)
I love my Mazda5 and always wanted to give it a slight lift, meatier tires, and add some lights. But alas, it’s going to a friend of ours soon.
That said, it does look excellent with bikes on the roof and a trailer behind it with more bikes and a canoe.
Voted Mazda today. Seems like a useful little van. I usually like Hondas a lot but that era of Honda V6’s had some issues with oil consumption. Unfortunately, I had experience with a couple of them and one ended badly with a lost engine. So today I’ll vote for the happy Mazda.