Comments by "Stephen Hendricks" (@stephenhendricks103) on "" video.

  1. Looked seriously at the Mazda6, the Accord 2.0L Touring, the Camry XSE V6, and the Ford Fusion AWD V6 almost two years ago. The Fusion's gone but the other three choices are little changed. On my score card the Accord came out #1 but with only a very slim margin over the Mazda. The SIgnature trim of the Mazda was impressive and the exterior styling was, to me, the best of all. Surprisingly, I found the tubo 4 and six speed transmission to be somewhat more sluggish than either the Accord or the Camry, an impression that was borne out by standard metrics such as 0-60 and quarter mile times. The deficits were relatively small but consistent among virtually all reviews. The Mazda handled well but its advantage over the Honda and the Toyota was almost unnoticeable. Unfortunately for Mazda, the long standing shrinking market share for midsize sedans has hit the Mazda6 far more seriously than either the Accord or the Camry. Mazda6 sales in the calendar year 2019 were down an astounding 30% to less than 22,000 units in the US. And in the wake of COVID-19, the first quarter of 2020 was even worse, down 42% from the first quarter of 2019 to only 4500 Mazda6's sold off dealer lots. Toyota sold over 77,000 Camry's and Honda (suffering from a severe sales slump) sold over 47,000 Accords. Of course, popularity may not correlate with quality and consumers who purchase a Mazda6 may not care how popular it is. But considering that Mazda's entire lineup of models (both sedans and SUV's) is in serious trouble (The Mazda CX-5 being literally the only model that isn't) the entire brand may be only a few steps away from becoming a division of Toyota.
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