#1996 mazda protege wiring drivers#
#1996 mazda protege wiring driver#

In most cars, larger ones, too, something about the console, or the underdash, or the door, rubs on your knee, or your shin, exactly on the part where there's hardly any meat to pad the bone.

#1996 mazda protege wiring drivers#

But our relatively normal-size drivers report something unexpected, maybe even unprecedented-the Protegé doesn't hurt them anywhere. Anatomies vary, and we can't foresee the complaints of every human settling into the driving position of a small car.

#1996 mazda protege wiring driver#

The Protegé does something else exceptionally well, something perhaps even more valuable: It fits the driver like a custom suit. The grille has an in-your-face chrome accent, too, a rich touch you'd expect on a Lincoln Continental or a Mercedes, but which seems utterly extravagant on a budgeteer. The rather formal profile of this four-door-only body is softened by a smoothly arched roofline and then given character with big taillights and boldly sculptured wheel-opening flares. Rather, it did the hard thing in creating an econobox that actually looks classy. That's a perishable condition (though you wouldn't know it from the Neon's still-spunky shape), and now it's a crowded corner of the market populated by the roly-poly New Beetle. Now Mazda has an all-new Protegé-new body, new engines, new automatic gearbox-and this one has a shot at celebrity. And we've always liked the Protegé because, well, it just seemed to get all the basics right. The Neon remains a cutie and a lusty performer besides. Still, a few econoboxes manage to stand out from the blur. They shop price and they keep shopping across brands until something fits the budget.

Price, quality, and dependability are the important issues for Protegé buyers, Mazda says. The only shoppers who care about this class now walk straight to the price sticker. And in these cheap-gas days, big numbers on the EPA mileage label no longer draw a crowd (remember when they did?). Nobody dreams of winning the Powerball lottery so they can show off a Chevy Cavalier in their driveway, or a Ford Escort or a Nissan Sentra. There's a certain who-cares anonymity to the cars in this econobox class. From the November 1998 issue of Car and Driver.