My sister owns a 2009 Mazda 3 which she purchased second hand in 2012 and it has been faultless and perfect for her. I'd say go for it. Subarus are great though their wheel bearings are a huge letdown with my experience which is why I'm passing my Outback to my father and getting a pickup to compliment my X-Trail. The X-Trail is going to become my daily driver and the pickup will be perfect for holidays and road trips.

I will be getting new tyres in the next few weeks for my X-Trail and most likely get the original ones fitted to the car which are Toyo Open Country highway terrain. I've also had the check engine light come on occasionally since I hit the kangaroo and it comes up with the dreaded P0420 error code.

Great to know that her Mazda has been reliable!  I've heard a lot of good things about Mazda's and getting an upscale trim level with optional features is still less expensive than a base level luxury brand like Acura or Lexus.  As far as I know, my friend with the Subaru Outback hasn't had any wheel bearing problems.  Good luck shopping for that pickup

We had a Mazda, it was a terrible experience. After 20+ years of driving, the Mazda was the first car I ever had that failed whilst I was driving on a busy freeway. Ford is partly to blame, though. Modern Mazda is now free of Fords' meddling. However, my friend's wife has a 2013 CX-9 and that thing seems like a pile of poo. The CEL is always on (long story, dealer gave up and warranty is expired now) and I have driven it, it drives very poorly, the ride is "coarse", not to be confused with "sporty". Again, another Ford bastard vehicle, has the Ford 3.7 V6 in it.

We also have owned 4 Subarus. One of them the head gasket leaked before the lease was up (2008 Impreza 2.5i Premium) and the current one has a leaking head gasket, bad transmission and bad AC compressor. Albeit, it has 100K miles on it, but this is poor durability for a Japanese car. Supposedly the new FB powered Subarus are much better than our EJ powered  Subarus, but we won't know because my wifes nest car is either a Civic Sport HB or a Toyota iM (Matrix). we are going to trade AWD traction for reliability. No more Subarus for us!

Funny enough, my 2 year old VW GTI has been more "reliable" than our 2 previous newly purchased Subarus. They needed repairs within the first year, one of them was taken back under Lemon/Goodwill by Subaru.

I'm surprised you've had bad experience with Mazda. I've heard horror stories of the US model Fords, however our Australian built Ford Falcons are known to be reliable and have been a workhorse for Australian Police force, government and taxi services. I've never had a problem with the Falcons I've owned. Unfortunately they have been discontinued due to more recent poor sales.

I've been unhappy with the wheel bearing experiences with the Subaru Outback I've owned, however the EJ253 engine has been hanging in there despite what I've heard about the head gaskets like takemorepills. My other car is a Nissan X-Trail and it has been a reliable small SUV and doesn't have any fancy extras that could break. It has a simple 2.5L 4 cylinder engine and the air conditioning/heating controls are the old fashioned turn dials rather than the electronic controls in the Outback.

Head gaskets aren't that hard to change either, but your bearings you should see if you can get one from SKF or Timken they will last and work better then anything the dealer is selling you and odds are good they will have a direct replacement that will fit, and if they are press fit in the hub, you just split the old one with a cold chisel and mallet, then you heat the hub up in the oven to a few hundred degs and toss the bearing in some liquid nitrogen or dry ice mixed with alcohol and cool it, it will drop right in the hub and once the temp equalizes and it will be in there just like you press fitted it..   

In all my years of owning cars, I have only had to replace one wheel bearing, in my 1997 Maxima with 300K miles.

I have owned my Japanese truck for 12 years, it is 4WD and I am a belligerent idiot with it off-road, I tow past it's tow limits of 9400 pounds and I ain't afraid to race anyone with it either. It has never needed a wheel bearing, why a Subaru would be eating them is beyond me. Our Subarus never needed wheel bearings, but they seemed to need everything else.

It may seem reasonable to non-Japanese car owners to replace head gaskets and wheel bearing every few years, but people who have owned Japanese cars from the 90's would find this frequent need for repair intolerable. I mean you could go buy a 20 year old Camry and have less trouble with it in the next 10 years than some new cars! BTW, for the record, I hate Camrys!

My other car is a Nissan X-Trail and it has been a reliable small SUV and doesn't have any fancy extras that could break. It has a simple 2.5L 4 cylinder engine and the air conditioning/heating controls are the old fashioned turn dials rather than the electronic controls in the Outback.

That is essentially what the Nissan Rogue is here in America. More or less.  Good looking girlie SUV!   I prefer the old fashioned turn dials myself.

I am sad that GM shut down Holden.  Chevrolet imported what we call the SS here as well as the Caprice(For police use) from Holden in Australia.  It was fun to have V8 sedans again. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Commodore_(VF)#Chevrolet_SS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Caprice

Oh, if the Nissan X-trail is a Rouge, let me know when the drivers door handle on the outside no longer works but the one on the inside does, don't worry it will happen eventually, it's a real easy fix and all you need is three tools a 10MM socket a philips #2 and a Torx 30 and you typically don't need any parts, I just did that two days ago on a friends Rouge, and needless to say the instructions on the internet suck and make what should take 20 minutes into like three hours... 

That is essentially what the Nissan Rogue is here in America. More or less.  Good looking girlie SUV!   I prefer the old fashioned turn dials myself.

I am sad that GM shut down Holden.  Chevrolet imported what we call the SS here as well as the Caprice(For police use) from Holden in Australia.  It was fun to have V8 sedans again. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Commodore_(VF)#Chevrolet_SS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Caprice

I know the current generation X-Trail/Rogue is fairly girly in design, however I have the first generation X-Trail manufactured 2000-2007 which I believe Nissan didn't sell at all in the US:



I'm not keen on the "girly SUV" design of the new ones.

Yeah it's a shame that Holden has shut in Australia as the Commodore was a great car. Same for Ford with their Falcon they made here. The car manufacturing industy in Australia is unfortunately dead.

@Lodge: No door handle issues here, however I do have a problem with the switch for one of the rear windows. While I like Nissan, I find getting technical information and repairs on their cars rather frustrating to find and if I do find them, they are hard to read, or its in Japanese.

Looks somewhat like the Xterra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Xterra

We never had the Xterra here in Australia. We have the Pathfinder, Patrol, X-Trail, Qashquai, Murano, and Navara. Unfortunately the current Nissan range isn't interesting anymore as they have gone down the girly route for their SUV range.

We never had the Xterra here in Australia. We have the Pathfinder, Patrol, X-Trail, Qashquai, Murano, and Navara. Unfortunately the current Nissan range isn't interesting anymore as they have gone down the girly route for their SUV range.

We wouldn't complain about that... 

We wouldn't complain about that... 

Yeah I figured you wouldn't mind. I like the "chunky" boxy SUVs.

Yeah I figured you wouldn't mind. I like the "chunky" boxy SUVs.

You can have clunky, and "girly" in pink with a series II landrover, I've always like the pink panthers and the other older landrovers, when they made them less like driving your living room sofa around town, and so expensive your scared to get them dirty, I've driven old series III up rivers without fear, but short of test driving there new junk I wouldn't touch them...

What exactly defines a car to be girly? I don't mean accessories girls put on them. I mean as driven out of the factory floor.

I've seen a car with eyelashes over the headlights. Polka dots all over. License place saying "lady bug" or something. Yes black polkas on deep red car. I have a pic of it somewhere. And no it's not any of the beetles from VW. I thought that was neat. Someone put some work on making a ladybug car.

I'm gonna replace brake pads and rotors for the front of a Toyota. Replace the sway bar bushings on the rear this week pending weather.

We never had the Xterra here in Australia. We have the Pathfinder, Patrol, X-Trail, Qashquai, Murano, and Navara. Unfortunately the current Nissan range isn't interesting anymore as they have gone down the girly route for their SUV range.

Yup, same thing here in America, girly looking cars, trucks, SUVs.