1997 protege good car???????

just bought 1997 dx, a/t, 64000 miles from little old lady. on the average are they good cars?? i drove it on interstate and once it got going it was not bad. it,s alot smoother in city streets than my 1995 olds acheiva. what kind of problems can i expect? the old lady did change timing belt ,water pump, and elec rad fan and a/c comp. thanks for any advice. jim.

Jim; Although I have not owned a 97 I have not heard of any abnormal reliability problems. Sounds like the car may have been well cared for. I wouls inspect the condition of the brake pads and change oil and filter, I prefer factory filters. Others may be good but I have had problems with some after market oil filters on over head cam cars, more Fram problems than with other filters. I think you will enjoy the Mazda.

Clifton

my father bought me a 97 protege. the day after we got it the car would not start. turns out compression was bad. had to replace engine for 500 dollars. the car was 2500. Prob have put about 3000 more into the car... still has problems... person who had it before never changed oil on it obviously!! they are good cars as long as u do routine maintenance on them... my car is finally doing better at 150,000 miles on it. poor car...

I have 201,000 K on my 1999 and other than routine maintenance I've replaced the EGR valve (prior to learning that it was the tube that clogs up) unnecessarily. The interior panels have warped a bit, but thats one of the hazards of owning a black car in Florida. Mazda replaced the brake pads at 50K and the new pads lasted slightly over 50k. Midas replaced them at 106k and they're still in good shape. My transmission pan used sealant only with no gasket. It started leaking at about 70k miles. I installed an after market gasket and haven't had any problems since.