A Car Reborn
3 Years ago I bought a brand new 2005 Mazda 3 Five Door. It was based on the Protege models and so had been in development for a while. In Japan and overseas they are marketed as The Axela. For the most part I have been very happy with the car, but it had one huge flaw. The wheels.
Even though I faithfully rotated the tires from front to back every oil change the wear was still much more profound on the front tires. Above is the tread left on one of the front tires. Below is one of the rears.
Now this is more like it. I went and bought some 16" wheels which opened up my tire selection greatly. It was also fully approved by Mazda, as the little sticker on the door of the car says that this size wheel and tire combination is approved for use on the car. As you can see in the pic below the tires have a much more weather oriented tread pattern. So far I have not noticed a real handling difference. The roads around here are covered with gravel and this combination handles that well. We also had a little bit of snow the other day and I was having fun trying to get the car to have issues. It has been transformed.