One problem related to noises during shifting has been reported for the 2000 Mazda Protege. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2000 Mazda Protege based on all problems reported for the 2000 Protege.
While lightly accelerating the car suddenly jerked, made a loud noise, and felt as though it slipped into neutral. I pulled my foot off the gas and the car recovered. This has happened 3 times within the past year, all incidents occurred around 40 mph. I noticed the car usually downshifts at this speed, but had not before each of these incidents had occurred. The car has less than 30k miles. I took it to the dealer, they did not find anything wrong and could not reproduce. I have researched this independently and found that 4 cylinder Mazda's have had similar transmission problems since the switch to Ford transmissions in 1994/1995!! I feel Mazda should have addressed this long ago and that their dealerships should be well aware of the problem.