4 Happy Years

I bought my Protege in 1996 after careful research on ConsumerReports.com and Edmunds.com. I also considered the Civic and Chevy Cavalier. The price was right, and the interior styling and size were superior to other cars, especially the Saturn and the Sentra, which both felt very cheap and cramped.

No problems yet with the car after four years and 40K miles. The tires it came with weren't great quality and have been replaced with Pirelli P400s (a very nice tire BTW). The only other problem has been squeaky passenger seat at high speeds when it is not occupied. The seats have nice cloth and are comfortable, and the stereo is good.

I have the LX with manual transmission and find that performance is great, at least as good as my old Volkswagen GTI. The LX with the automatic (at least in 1996) felt very weak and underpowered to me when I was test driving it.

If you don't mind a standard transmission, the LX is a great value. Otherwise consider a Civic LX because the larger-engined Protege ES costs about the same as a Civic. Also, the Civic will probably will have a higher resale value.