By Jonny Lieberman
September 21, 2006 -
I'm good with names. Meet me at a party. Five hours and seven beers later, I'll cruise up and say, "Hey Benjamin, how goes it?" That’s assuming A) your name is Benjamin and B) you’re interesting. If a person is as dull as Tuesday afternoon C-Span, then the part of my brain that puts faces to names shuts down. I mention this because I had to click over to mazdausa.com to figure out if I’m driving the B4000 or B4400. Turns out it’s the former. Who knew?
Design-wise, Mazda usually does one of two things: nail it (Miata, Mazda3) or overcook it (RX-8, Speed6). The designers of the B-Series truck didn't even try. It’s a pastiche of truck clichés that shouts “cheap!” like a 3,915 pound canary. The B4000’s pinched front end and teeny grill are not only two-decades behind the truck-times, but they’re pug ugly. Three-spoke wheels have never and will never look good on any vehicle. On the B4000 they look fat, too. DCX may have copied the B4000’s chunky wheel arches for their new S-Class, but at least they had the good sense to round them out. A squared off half-circle says "accident survivor" to me.
Like Toyota 4Runners of yore, you enter the B4000 by climbing into a high-floored cabin– that forces you to sit with your legs sticking nearly straight out. In terms of quality, style and livability, the B4000’s interior is lower-rent than a Chernobyl apartment building. I'm not calling the Mazda’s seats the worst I've ever sat in, but that’s only because I’ve given Old Sparky a miss. More specifically, the chairs are less supportive than Hugo Chavez on America’s Iraq policy. While the rear “seats” are small and cramped enough to render the word useless useless, the quarter-sized doors are easy to open in tight quarters. The resulting space behind the front seat is perfect for lugging a bag of groceries or three.
Fake carbon fiber surrounds the B4000’s radio. Why would Mazda go for faux race car chic in a truck that’s less sporty than NBC’s smallest loser? The scalloped vents along the top of the dash are… bizarre. On the positive side, the B4000’s column-shifter frees-up the center console for more storage-nooks and holding-crannies than the Honda Ridgeline.
The B4000 is the best handling small truck on the road– if you transport yourself back to its 1994 debut. Twelve-years later, the truck is showing its age with less grace than Kathleen Turner. Rough roads make turning the wheel an impromptu low rider bounce clinic. Smooth pavement highlights the chassis’s other shortcomings. On the positive side, um, above 70mph you get a free hand massage from the vibrating steering wheel. And some might find the squeak in the steering column soothing.
For those of you with points on your license, getting Mazda’s truck to crest 80mph on anything other than an Olympic ski jump is very, very difficult. The 4.0-liter 12-valve V6 powerplant kicks out 207hp @ 5,250rpm and stumps up 238lbs. feet of torque @ 3,000rpm– well behind the power Toyota’s same-sized mill produces in the much newer Tacoma. The B4000’s speed sensitive rack and pinion power steering makes it easy to exploit whatever speed you generate. The ABS brakes shed it just as easily. And if you baby the B, it’ll travel 16 mpg in the city, 20 in the highway. If you drive it, you won’t.
Unlike the modern behemoths so bewildering to Japanese engineers everywhere, the B4000 has a low load in height. Case in point: I helped a friend haul a VW Karmann Ghia 1500 engine back from a machine shop. We were able to lift the two-hundred pound lump of magnesium and pig-iron out of the Mazda’s bed, no problem. While an F-150 can haul more in terms of weight, the B4000 comes standard with a 72-inch bed, to the F-150's 66-incher. For most people most of the time, the 4000 (and its clone, the Ford Ranger) makes a lot more sense than the full-sized trucks used by some of the people all of the time.
In fact, it’s too bad Mazda let the B4000 die on the vine. Gas prices may have dipped in the past few weeks, but the country’s automotive gestalt has shifted. Enormous and irresponsible is out; moderate and slightly less irresponsible is in. It’s the perfect time to release a small, efficient truck that’s about 80% as useful as the full-sized giants so many people are currently unloading (so to speak). But no, at a time when Honda’s Ridgeline has (almost) reignited and (just about) re-invented the light-truck market, FoMoCo is content to let another market segment fall entirely into the hands of Honda, Toyota and Nissan. While the B4000 has its supporters, it will eventually be remembered as a forgettable experience.
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More Reviews59 Responses to “ Mazda B4000 Review ”
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September 21st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Yep, this thing is a heaping pile of 1994 (when I had a Ranger STX, almost Exactly the same vehicle).
Jonny, if you seriously believe the the ridgeline has “reignited” or even “just about reinvented” the light truck market, you sir are living in a parallel universe. I live in truck-centric northern midwest and cant remember the last time I saw a ridgeline in the last month….or even two (thats not a joke).
September 21st, 2006 at 4:34 pm
This is one of those “Ford inflicted on Mazda” products, like the Tribute. I don’t think Mazda has all that much to do with the basic design and the refulsal for more resources.
There is a reason nobody buys those things.
September 21st, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Hmmm…well, while I agree with some of what Johnny says I wouldn’t have so negative a take on it. I owned a 99 Ranger from 99 to 03 and was generally satisfied with it. The ride was perfectly fine for a 2wd truck and while the seat was less than perfect (way too soft) I took several long trips in the truck and it was actually more comfortable than my current Subaru.
Mine had the 3.0l FF V6 engine (at a time when E85 was actually more expensive than regular unleaded) that was absolutely anemic - 150hp - but which was sufficient to propel the truck to freeway speeds, where I was happy to stay. One big advantage of the 3.0 and the 5-speed manual tranny was that I routinely clocked over 20mpg on the highway - one time I got as high as 26, but that was something of a fluke. Nevertheless, 23-24 was normal highway MPG and even in the city I could usually hit 20. I was on several Ranger message boards at the time and the abysmal MPG of the 4.0 (especially in the 4wd version) was a frequent topic of conversation.
For me the truck was fine (except for the lack of 4wd, which was a PITA.) I deliberately chose one without any fancy easy-to-break components and the truck ran without a hiccup for 93,000 miles until I traded it in.
When talking about trucks, I think it’s important to remember that a truck is not a car, and people who buy trucks buy them because they want a truck, not a car. In many ways, the only way to buy a “basic” vehicle without a lot of bells and whistles is to get a truck: Two speaker stereos, manual-crank windows and other simple features being harder and harder to find on cars.
As for appearance, obviously it’s subjective. I like the Ranger/B-series looks, especially when you compare them to the competition: The ghastly, anime-inspired angularity of the Chevy, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan small trucks makes them look like oversized toys to me. The Ranger/B Series may not win any awards but at least it doesn’t look like something you’d find on one of those Japanese seizure-inducing cartoons.
Honestly, I wish it was as easy to find the kind of basic simplicity in cars that you can in modern trucks. Not everybody needs rack and pinion steering, power windows and locks, 6-way-adjustable electric seats or heated windshield wipers. For a lot of people, four wheels, five speeds and a motor are plenty.
September 21st, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Funny thing, the two least desirable products in the Mazda line-up are Ford products. Not to knock Ford, (I own both a Mazda and a Ford.) but they did really leave these products out in the pasture. While all the other brands went Supersized with their “compact” line-ups, Ford has left this and the Ranger alone.
Were they to release a new, revitalized, truly compact Pick-up, I think it would be a smash hit! With The Tacoma’s and Frontier’s barely getting 20mpg, a good 4 cyl-6cyl Compact truck would have the market all to itself.
There is still such a huge market for economical compact trucks, the powers that be at Ford/Mazda don’t seem to see it.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:04 pm
13 years is quite the model run. Is there a new Ranger/B-series in the works?
September 21st, 2006 at 5:13 pm
I had a 1990 B2200 that I bought new and kept for 10 years. This was a great small truck that I had no trouble with - the original tires lasted 50,000 miles! 25mpg! Of course this was made in Japan. Starting in 94 (I think) Mazda B trucks were re-badged Rangers, and it’s been all downhill since then.
I will say that there is a market for a well-made small (1/4 ton) truck that gets good mileage. Lots of fleets need these: municipalities, messengers, etc. A diesel would be nice, too.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:28 pm
They’re made in Minnesota for now.
Soon, 1800+ plus Americans will be sans-job when FoMoCo shutters the factory.
And socsndaisy — give it time — you’ll catch up.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Interestingly enough, I just posted about this truck in the ford deathwatch thread.
although the truck could use some updating, I don’t know how much I’d actually change. fuel economy is most important by far, and I’d probably work on the ride. (where’s my F150 style suspension?)
Interestingly enough, the only things that have failed on my girlfriend’s ‘94 are the automatic locking hubs (now, not so automatic Warn hubs) and the (Mazda) 5-speed manual transmission.
I blame the transmission on poor maintinance by the previous owner.
But it hauls dirt, and furniture, and camping supplies like nobody’s business, and even tows pretty well.
Update the safety features, suspension, and engine, add a little youth oriented marketing (and a couple fleet versions) and you’ve got yourself a winner!
September 21st, 2006 at 5:41 pm
socsndaisy:
yeah same here. I am out in pickup land here in Omaha and I think I’ve only ever seen about 4 ridgelines. I see way more boxsters than ridgelines here, not to mention f-150s and sierras. In fact in the last few months I have seen more NSX’s on the roads than ridgelines, now that’s pretty rare in Nebraska. From here, I still can’t see why the media declared the ridgeline a pickup revolution.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Tixer: I agree with you — small trucks are great and a modern one would be welcome and probably do very well.
This dinosaur should be and will be extinct very soon.
Maxo: Again — like (almost) all Honda products, the Ridgeline will show up where you live. They are excpetionally well engineered.
I would suggest going down to the dealer and climbing all over then driving one. A remarkable truck (with the odd exception of the stupidly high bed-walls).