I have the Touring AWD with Tech. It wasn't necessarily the car I wanted, but after looking at everything else out there, and my wallet, and needs (AWD, cargo capacity, better than average reliability), it was the car I got because it represented the best compromise I could find. I talked a bit in the "What other cars did you consider" thread about the CRV and Tiguan and won't repeat that story here.
Anyway, my test drive impressions have mostly stuck with me, and echo what is obvious to everyone else - the handling is good, period. Not just for a SUV, but for any car. Let's not get crazy - it's not a sports car, and I'll repeat here what I said in the other thread that I though the Tiguan was better - but it has a great balance and road feel, and the seating position, seats, and steering wheel are almost as good as you can get within reason. I love this about Mazda because it was something any company could have achieved, if they'd made the effort, except they didn't. Things like this don't necessarily cost more to manufacture. Overall, the styling, handling, and build quality is very mid-range "Japanese" which I won't try too much to describe except to say that none of it could easily be mistaken for a German vehicle.
There is lots of tech - on mine at least - much of which is more along the line of being gizmos than things that add meaningfully to the actual driving experience, for me at least. In some ways all these toys cheapen the experience. Again this is just my perception and some things, like the bixenons, are awesome. I wish some of the money spent on these gizmos had gone into better build material quality, or maybe a lockable transaxle if that's even possible on a vehicle like this. The quality of some of the "features" seems compromised excessively as well: the moonroof is tiny and so far back it's hard to even see from the front seat, the Bose sound system is fairly meh for a decent vehicle these days (even when compared to other vehicle Bose systems I've owned), and the navigation system interface is annoying as hell and not worth even bothering with for someone used to what's available on smartphones. Unfortunately I paid for these things, some of which were necessary to get to the bixenons.
I'm "getting" the whole Skyactiv idea finally. Beyond the engine mods, the weight savings acheivements are amazing, as this area has already been worked and worked and worked by the best engineers in the world for literally decades. So to make significant strides is, again, amazing. The minor documented issues like hood and mirror shake are probably the result of these weight savings efforts, but to push the envelope risks had to be taken and compromises accepted that before had always been rejected. I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, but I suspect that some part of the handling excellence and my ability to sometimes forget I'm driving a little SUV are due to these weight reductions, and maybe chassis stiffening that went along with them.
I finally figured out that the engine reminds me of the Honda engines from the eighties and nineties - underpowered but willing and eager to try anyway. And in fact the whole driving experience is more like my beloved old Si Civic hatchbacks than anything else I've driven since. Those cars, and this car, were fun as long as you were willing to whip them like a rented mule. So that's what I've been doing. The Civics didn't mind being whipped and hopefully the CX-5 won't either. They were manuals which made them easier and a little more fun to whip, but I plan to learn the ways of the manumatic shortly. In some ways this overall driving experience makes the CX-5 seem a little behind the times, but maybe that's not all bad.
Anyway, my test drive impressions have mostly stuck with me, and echo what is obvious to everyone else - the handling is good, period. Not just for a SUV, but for any car. Let's not get crazy - it's not a sports car, and I'll repeat here what I said in the other thread that I though the Tiguan was better - but it has a great balance and road feel, and the seating position, seats, and steering wheel are almost as good as you can get within reason. I love this about Mazda because it was something any company could have achieved, if they'd made the effort, except they didn't. Things like this don't necessarily cost more to manufacture. Overall, the styling, handling, and build quality is very mid-range "Japanese" which I won't try too much to describe except to say that none of it could easily be mistaken for a German vehicle.
There is lots of tech - on mine at least - much of which is more along the line of being gizmos than things that add meaningfully to the actual driving experience, for me at least. In some ways all these toys cheapen the experience. Again this is just my perception and some things, like the bixenons, are awesome. I wish some of the money spent on these gizmos had gone into better build material quality, or maybe a lockable transaxle if that's even possible on a vehicle like this. The quality of some of the "features" seems compromised excessively as well: the moonroof is tiny and so far back it's hard to even see from the front seat, the Bose sound system is fairly meh for a decent vehicle these days (even when compared to other vehicle Bose systems I've owned), and the navigation system interface is annoying as hell and not worth even bothering with for someone used to what's available on smartphones. Unfortunately I paid for these things, some of which were necessary to get to the bixenons.
I'm "getting" the whole Skyactiv idea finally. Beyond the engine mods, the weight savings acheivements are amazing, as this area has already been worked and worked and worked by the best engineers in the world for literally decades. So to make significant strides is, again, amazing. The minor documented issues like hood and mirror shake are probably the result of these weight savings efforts, but to push the envelope risks had to be taken and compromises accepted that before had always been rejected. I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, but I suspect that some part of the handling excellence and my ability to sometimes forget I'm driving a little SUV are due to these weight reductions, and maybe chassis stiffening that went along with them.
I finally figured out that the engine reminds me of the Honda engines from the eighties and nineties - underpowered but willing and eager to try anyway. And in fact the whole driving experience is more like my beloved old Si Civic hatchbacks than anything else I've driven since. Those cars, and this car, were fun as long as you were willing to whip them like a rented mule. So that's what I've been doing. The Civics didn't mind being whipped and hopefully the CX-5 won't either. They were manuals which made them easier and a little more fun to whip, but I plan to learn the ways of the manumatic shortly. In some ways this overall driving experience makes the CX-5 seem a little behind the times, but maybe that's not all bad.
