Cars and cargo space... a babble

[forgotten_aria]

So, in general, cars talking about cargo space in cubic feet. The problem seems to be that no one can agree on how to messure this. To look at the mazda5, you can find quotes of anything from 70 cubic feet to 44 for with both 2nd and 3rd seats folded and anything from 15 to 4 with all the seats up.

So I've been searching for "real" messurments (because I can't get this off my mind and it doens't make sense for me to go to a dealer until april.) I think I acutally found some and found that that despite the shorter nose, and longer body and wheel base, the cargo area is a mere 2" longer than my current saturn. How does that happen?! I can't really find good numbers on how tall the space is (with out blocking visiblity) but I'm really hoping that will be the big win. I'm still confused that it does not have a longer cargo hold than my saturn... So confused. I really hope it WILL be able to carry things better. What really fightens me is how small the mazda3's space must be.

The more I look into modern cars, the more I realize just how awesome my current car is. *sigh*

Comments

[zkzkz.livejournal.com]

I'm basing this on three things -- all of which are pretty sketchy for various reasons:

1) My own experience with the matrix. Admittedly a cheaper car than the Saabs I was more familiar with. The clutch gave out really early (~30k km) and Toyota refused to consider it under warranty --clutches are normally not covered by warranties, but seriously, 30k km driven by a mother familiar with manual transmissions? Also, the plastic front skirt clips all broke and paint chipped like crazy. The disc brakes have inadequate ventilation and rusted earlier than they ought to have -- I'm told VW disc brakes have the same problem.

2) I read something somewhere about Toyota build quality going down. When I read it I said "aha, so it wasn't just this car" but didn't save a reference to it.

3) A company which sells used car warranties publishes their stats based on their actual warranty claims at:
http://www.reliabilityindex.co.uk/top10.html?apc=3128339010848601

Note that Toyota is still in the top 10 but compare it to Honda and Mazda with half the warranty claims. It's still better than the likes of Chrysler and Alfa though with double again the claims of Toyota. let alone Jeep, Porsche, and Landrover with more than 3 times the claims (Though this takes into account the dollar amounts which is why they fare so poorly).

That said, their US numbers look better. They have slightly lower rates of failures than Honda. These stats don't take into account repair costs. So either their US plants are doing better than their European plants or their repairs aren't especially common, just more expensive.