I've had a 2005 Mazda 3 Winning Blue 5 door for over four years now. Car only has 49,000 miles on it. It's a blast to drive and a fun little car, but it's definitely plagued with some annoying issues. It's failed to pass state inspection twice before it was three years old!
The PCV was replaced under warranty one time. Then we had a terrible gas smell because of another emissions part failure and the dealer sat on the car for almost two weeks while they replaced a number of emissions parts and the gas tank. They put one of the seals in wrong and the car had to go back all over again. It was a nightmare. The smell was so bad it made my son sick to be in the car. The parts guy told me that this happened to a number of the early cars, but was surprised it "took my car so long" to manifest the problem. (smash)
Now the car needs both front wheel bearings replaced at only 48K miles. Now I'm not letting the dealer touch the car at this point, so I went to pick up the bearings at the dealer. The parts guy told me that they have trouble keeping these on the shelf and that the wheel bearings for this car have already been re-engineered 2 x's since it was built.
The minor issues are the ones everyone complains about. Passenger Door Rattle, Clunky Power Windows, Squeaky brakes when wet, some nasty dash rattles (hopefully the bearing replacement will stop that). Also, the suspension is really noisy when you get in and out of the car (and I'm not huge), and the fuel pump is starting to sing. Glove box doesn't like to stay closed, and now the clutch is getting pretty noisy. And yes, my clock LOVES to lose time!
My father is a mechanic and has pretty much told me that the car is a piece of crap. And to you folks say that this car isn't a Ford, you are partially right. This car shares MANY parts with Ford and some safety parts with Volvo. This platform was one of Ford's first "World Car" platforms.
Now all this said, I still love my 3 for it's style and personality, but not its reliability or quality (sounds like I'm talking about my old 16v Scirocco!). I don't think it will hit the almost 200K miles my Honda Civic had at trade-in. Sure hope it stays together, though, as my son is looking forward to getting the car in about 4 years!