Is Mazda Better Than Toyota And Honda?

By popular demand, I had many of you asking me to compare Mazda to Toyota and Honda. I was actually kind of surprised to see as I looked through my management system, comparing the top five Japanese makes, I was actually pretty impressed to see where Mazda ranked up there with the best of the best. So going through the average parts cost of the top five Japanese makes, I wanna share those numbers with you. So coming up at number one, as the lowest average cost of parts is actually Mazda. So the average cost of a part that I've installed on our customers Mazdas in the last five years was $55.97. Now, when I'm giving you these averages, keep in mind what our shop does. We're a diagnose and repair shop. So yes, we do everything from like oil services and emissions all the way up to engine replacements and wiring harnesses and all that crazy stuff. So where that average comes from is a $5,000 engine all the way down to a 30 cent bulb. If you average all out, ends up being $55.97. Coming in at number two was actually Nissan. So Nissan's had an average part price of $58.48. Third are my Hondas. Honda came in at $62.22. Toyota came in fourth, $70.90. And all of our poor Subaru owners, Subarus are very popular here in Utah. Subaru owners spent an average of $73.83 on their parts. So with Mazda coming in first at $55.97 while Subaru came in last with an average of 73.83, you can see from the list that Honda and Toyota was kind of mid pack as far as actually cost of repairing those cars. Doesn't really speak to reliability or anything, but something interesting to think about because I get people asking me all the time what vehicle they should buy from a reliability standpoint, from a cost of ownership, cost of repairs. So it's interesting to see that Mazda owners actually pay a little bit less on average, at least in my shop the last five years with parts. So the next stat I wanna share with you is actually the average cost of the whole repair across the same five mates. Kind of interesting numbers here. So let's get into them. So coming in at number one at the lowest average repair order cost is Honda. Honda came in, our Honda owners have spent an average of 815 and 39 cents every visit. If you average the lucky guy that came in for a $50 oil service, all the way up to the unlucky person that came in for a five, six, $7,000 engine replacement. The average Honda owner in our shop over the last five years has spent $815 and 39 cents. Coming in number two, Toyota. 850 and 51 cents is the average repair order in our shop for Toyotas. Mazda came in third. So Mazda, 896.09. Fourth was Nissan at 909.86. And once again, you poor Subaru owners, 1,622. So Honda coming in first with an average repair visit of $815 and 39 cents. Toyota taking that second place and Mazda coming in third with 896.09. Kind of interesting to see. So Mazda had the lowest cost of parts in relation to like Honda and Toyota, yet Honda and Toyota owners as an average spent a little bit less. So what that tells me is the average Mazda owner needs an extra part or two per visit than what the Mazda owners do. Because looking through labor guides and stuff, Mazdas are not more difficult to work on. It's not like they got higher labor costs. So it's my best guess that Mazdas just need a couple extra parts here and there. But it's very tight. I was actually expecting to make this video kind of beating up on you Mazda lovers. Because you had some pretty strong opinions when I'm making my Honda and Toyota videos. But surprisingly enough, hanging in there with what I consider the top two, really, really close. Now, unfortunately, my software doesn't make it easy for me to look up frequency of repairs and frequency of like severe repairs. That's definitely a stat that would be very important to look into, you know. It doesn't really matter if, say, Honda has the lowest average repair cost if you're bringing your Honda into the shop twice as often as your Mazda, right? I don't have the ability to find those numbers easily. And once again, I make my living doing auto repair. This YouTube thing is just something we enjoy to do. So we try to not invest too many hours into it and get too far behind with the demands of running this place. But I wish I could look that up. I wish I could look up the frequency of repairs and more importantly, the frequency of like surprise big repairs. I don't have that data, but in talking to the nine technicians we have here and just talking to my service advisors and then just kind of going through the day-to-day, looking through tickets and kind of trying to remember, it looks very similar. I don't see that between Mazda, Honda, and Toyota that any of the three are coming in more regularly. Definitely don't have any of the three coming in on a tow truck more often. So I think they're actually pretty tightly comparable as far as reliability from the repair shop. We don't have, I don't hear that somebody has a Mazda and be like, oh shoot, awesome. You're gonna see me way more often than my Honda customers. So a general sense is as far as reliability, as far as have to bring it to a repair shop like mine, I think the Mazda owners are in pretty good shape. So the one number that was kind of surprising to me is the Toyota versus Honda comparison. So just from a part standpoint, so once again, the average part cost we installed on a Toyota was $70.90 in comparison to the $55.99 for the average Mazda part. And then even though Toyota parts are 27% higher cost on average than the Mazda parts, their average repair order was still 5% less. So Toyota owners spend 27% more per part, but 5% less on average when they actually come into the shop, which just means obviously Mazda owners are buying a little bit more parts every visit than what the Toyota owners need. It was kind of an interesting stat, but it all washes out. And they ended up with a repair order within 10, 20 bucks. So it wasn't like a huge life-changing difference. So once again, I've been doing auto repair for 30 years now, and I've never been a huge Mazda fan. I've never hated Mazda. I've just never got excited to go drive one or own one when I test drive a customer's Mazda in comparison to driving, say, a customer's Honda or Toyota of the same vintage, especially years ago. Engine mounting's a little less lovable. You know, you feel a little bit more of the engine vibrations. They just don't seem to drive quite as nice, a little bit more road noise. But especially in the last 10 years, they've really brought that around. The newer Mazdas actually drive quite well, but I would say early 2000s, 2010s, I was seeing a lot of Mazda engine failures. And then just when you drove them, they just didn't, I don't know, they just didn't seem to drive. They felt cheap driving them. They had a lot of interior rattles, had a lot of climate control issues. They just seemed less solidly built to me back in that timeframe. But I would say in the last 10 years, nice work, Mazda. They're actually a pretty decent driving vehicle. They've come a long way on their odds and ends, like interior rattles, their climate control. Their paint's gotten a lot better. That was one concern. My youngest daughter's doing ceramic coat and detailing. Mazda paint used to be a little thin and a little orange-peely to where she says they were really hard to, you know, cut down and buff properly, whereas all these newer ones she says look great. So overall, I don't have any, I guess I don't have the results that I expected to have. I expected to stand in front of you and tell you how much greater Honda and Toyotas were than Mazda and why, if you own a Mazda, you're gonna have to come see me more often. But that's actually, that's surprisingly untrue. So Mazda's up there, you know. Not only is it in the top five Japanese makes, but one could argue it's in the top three there, obviously by the numbers I have. And so yeah, it's kinda interesting to see that. I've been getting a ton of positive feedback lately. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for liking our channel, watching our videos, and especially for taking the time to actually type up a nice comment. There's a few bombers in there, but we don't worry about those little guys. Everybody has a bad day in their mom's basement, right? So not a big deal on those ones, but no, really. The feedback has been great, and that's what motivates Brayden and I to get up at five in the morning to get all this gear out and stand in front of this camera and make these videos. So thank you for watching, thank you for subscribing, and thank you so much for all the nice comments. I really appreciate that.