A curious vehicle: Mazda calls its a "Sport Van." It is sort of a compact utility vehicle -- a total of six seats, 2, 2, and then 2 in the far back. It was plenty gutsy for its purpose, rode well, and handled well, probably because it was pretty low center of gravity. It took a while to get used to some of the operating controls, and I confess that I have become spoiled by automatic headlights, which this did not have. Gas mileage was not spectacular -- generally we saw about 24-25 mpg on the trip to Reno, which is all highway driving, although admittedly, very high speed highway driving. (You don't want to know, but most if it was empty parts of Nevada.)
The real bummer was the really bad stereo -- very tinny. Perhaps I have just been spoiled by GM and Jaguar stereos.
The only really irritating part of this experience was not the fault of the car. When we rented the car from Budget, I could not find a cigarette lighter plug to connect the Garmin and other electronics. What should have been the lighter plug was more like a USB power port. We ran back to Budget; it appears that a previous renter had plugged in an adapter to convert cigarette lighter plug to USB power port, and either forgot the adapter, or could not get it out. With enough force, Budget managed to remove it.
This came to about $86 for three days -- an absolute bargain, compared to what it would have cost to drive my own car from Boise to Reno and back.
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