<div dir="ltr"><div>I did consider the Mazda 3 - I have a high opinion of it. I did luck into finding a 2004 Mazda 6 hatch for sale locally that is in really, really nice condition with only 56k, two attentive owners, lots of records, nothing wrong with it, and it's about 2 miles from me. I'm very tempted. I found a very nice E46 Touring with a manual and sport package for sale on an enthusiast forum, but it is pushing the limit of my budget and is in LA. Mk V Volkswagens made it onto my shortlist but it is hard to find ca. 2006-2009 GTIs with 4 doors and under 100k miles. Jetta wagons even harder, and I'm only interested in 2009-up TDIs and those are almost all too expensive. But then I realized that the A3 is a great car and a better value than a GTI, since they seem underappreciated and are in less demand. <br><br>So my current short list is the Mada 6 hatch/wagon (one great example down the road from me), the A3 (still looking for a sub-100k local car that isn't a low-spec model, but here's one in Detroit: <a href="http://annarbor.craigslist.org/cto/4644607683.html">http://annarbor.craigslist.org/cto/4644607683.html</a>) and this A4 Avant: <a href="http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/cto/4700925207.html">http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/cto/4700925207.html</a><br><br></div><div>David<br></div><div><br></div>David<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Ben Fenner <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fenfam@sc.rr.com" target="_blank">fenfam@sc.rr.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">If the Mazda6 wagon is hard to find in a manual and in general, give the Mazda3 hatch a look. They are hard to turn down for all of your needs.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
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-Ben Fenner<br>
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