nathanagnew
Member
- :
- 2003 Mazda Protege5
Recently picked up my very first Protege5 from my mother-in-law, who bought it new from the dealer in 2003. It has been garaged its entire life, with the exception of the few months I've had it. I bought it with 81k miles, which seems borderline insane for a P5 nowadays. The paint is in really solid shape, with the exception of some fender and rear passenger dents where my wife ran it into the garage door back in high school. I just replaced the passenger-side mirror because she cracked the inside structure of the mirror when that happened, which looked fine but it had some shake when driving at high speeds. The new mirror is black, which makes me want to replace the driver-side with a similar black one. Father-in-law is from Hong Kong, so he's into "race cars" so he put the rims on the P5 a few years ago.
So far I've barely touched it, with the exception of a few small things. Black neoprene front seat covers because my wife works as a swim instructor and I wanted to keep everything dry. I updated the factory radio with a really nice touchscreen with rear-view camera to keep it with-the-times. I replaced the engine mounts last week (and managed to break my finger in the process) and today I found a fiberglass grill upgrade on Facebook marketplace. I'll probably paint the grill white eventually, but for now I'm going easy with it.
Future plans: I want to switch the tail lights for JDM and see if I can find a Mazdaspeed front lip (which is borderline impossible, if you have one please tell me). I'm also tossing around the idea of having custom roof rack made for the car, but that might be overkill. Most of the ones I find sit too high, so I'm looking for something really low profile.
Overall, its an insanely cool ride and I'm very pleased with it. If yall have any advice, I welcome it!
--Nate from Fort Worth