 I shopped Toyota, Scion, Honda and meant to test drive the Mazda 3.  The deal I was presented with on my Hyundai caused me to stop shopping.  I needed an economical sedan comfortable enough for a family of 4 safely travel.  The room and drive was so pleasant, I probably would have been back after Mazda anyway.  Engine noise I read about was not as bad as expected and the overall car is superior in functional design.  After 6 months and 9,000 miles, I'm still finding new things about the car like the fact I can't lock the car with keys in the ignition.  If the initial quality rolls into long term reliability, other car manufacturers will have to try extremely hard to win my business back.  