I own this car (4 cyl, fwd, manual, "fully loaded), bought it new '04 and its been fantastic to me, for all the miles and crap I put it through it has held up fantastic (one minor issue regarding a sensor around the 3rd year of ownership, but this was fixed in a day and was covered by the warranty).

Dont expect a fantastic amount of power though, in my opinion it looks faster than it is (160+ HP i think) but for it being considered a "family car" its great, and a benefit of a small 4 cylinder engine is the gas mileage ( which if i keep the revs under 3k, i can get close to 28 mpg) .

Mazda is great. If your looking for more HP and performance, check out the Speed version of this car (which I am considering to be my next Mazda), it has the same great luxury for the price (around 30k) and packs a fantastic 270hp, turbo, 4wd.

I would hate to recommend other cars because I don't have enough experience with them and am totally biased toward anything else, but if I must, you might want to check out the Nissan family. Altimas and Maximas might be around the same quality and maybe a BIT more costly.

Maybe look into a mazda3 as well.

hope this helps.