One problem related to battery cable has been reported for the 2002 Mazda Protege. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2002 Mazda Protege based on all problems reported for the 2002 Protege.
My car stalled while I was driving (actually in motion). I slowly came to a stop and tried to restart car but was unsuccessful. I sat on the side of a very narrow road for several hours waiting for a tow truck to tow me to the dealership. The dealership informed me that my battery was completely dead and that I needed a new one. My car barely had 20k miles on it at that point. I informed the dealership that I couldn't understand how the battery could just die while the car was in motion but they insisted that was the problem. Approximately a year and a half later the same exact problem occurred. I had it jump started to test the battery. We disconnected the plus cable from the battery while the car was on and it remained on but as soon as I turned my lights on it died. We were not able to jump start the car again after that. The next day my fiance went out to take a look at the car and it started right up. He brought it to a mechanic and they ran several tests over the engine but found no problems.