2014 CX-5 New Owner Observations: First Mountain Drive (2.5L Touring AWD)

Thanks for all the positive comments to my previous thread ("Detailed Review"). I really appreciate them!

I took the CX-5 on its first trip to the mountains today and it handled them swimmingly.

A typical road trip to the mountains (for me) involves a lot of curvy, windy road of gradual ascent (0.1-2%) at fairly good speeds of up to 40-50 MPH. A few places involve switchbacks of much sharper inclines (2-5%) and when other cars are in front of you going slow, you're forced to go even slower. The loss of momentum means lower gears and more required power.

Doing this in a typical small car like my 109 HP Honda Fit was possible, but taxing on the driving experience. The worst part was a couple of switch backs where first gear produced the torque required but revved the engine really high and 2nd gear didn't produce enough torque. I made do.

Today's trip with the CX-5 was wonderful. It handled every slope, every curve, every turn with grace and confidence. I wasn't even trying very hard: I'm still breaking in the car as a whole so I'm very reluctant to push the pedal down very hard. I want to take it easy, and this car has enough power that I don't have to push it: it just goes where I point it, even if that means up, too.

Ascents were smooth and that great automatic transmission would do the shifting for me, allowing me to keep my eye on the road or take in a quick view while driving. I'm practicing very slight pedal movements to gear up and gear down. Just little hints to the transmission that says either some more gas, or more gas in a different gear, please. It's a nicely tuned transmission that I expect complete satisfaction with when I get to know it more.

My drive home involved about 25 miles of gradual down slope and I did my best to coast as much as possible. Unlike a manual, I never put it in neutral to coast, but kept it in Drive and let off the gas pedal. When I first tried this I had just ascended a bluff, so I was probably in 4th gear. As I started downward, there was decent resistance until I noticed it shift into 5th, then 6th, and settle in.

Gravity pulled the car down and forward but it didn't snowball to get faster and faster but mostly leveled out. I tried steering through a few curves without braking and it handled that nicely too.

In the future, after this car is broken in, I expect to drive much more confidently and similar to a typical Auto transmission driver: push the pedal normally, rev that engine and enjoy those curves.

Today's test was letting me confirm that even with a high 13:1 compression engine, the altitude shouldn't have a noticeable impact on performance. I went from 4800 feet in town to about 10,000 feet and saw no difference the driving experience. Some of the youtube videos done by Boulder based The Fast Lane Car suggested that the altitude makes a difference and that their 0-60 MPH tests showed it. But at least for the torque needed to climb mountains, this CX-5 has plenty of it.

http://www.tflcar.com/2012/03/video...activ-gets-muddy-makes-good-first-impression/

High altitude equals reduced air density, which can only mean reduced performance?

I'll read all your essay tonight after fishing.

Altitude does have an affect on the power of the 2.5 CX-5.

Wait until you need to pass a car on the Pothole to Pothole (Peak to Peak), on one of the last passing spots between Ward and Nederland.
You will notice the lack of power then, even in the 2.5.

I still love my Soul Red Touring.
I even added some great goodies to it, that make it completely unique.

BC.

Congrats on the new CX5. Nice review. I've had mine for about 3 weeks now and all I can say is I am enjoying it very much. You can get very good fuel economy on secondary roads at speeds of 40-50mph. The handling and power are meeting my expectations and the car is putting the fun back into driving again. I came from a 5speed manual 06 Forester and don't miss the shifting at all.

maxwax said:

Today's test was letting me confirm that even with a high 13:1 compression engine, the altitude shouldn't have a noticeable impact on performance. I went from 4800 feet in town to about 10,000 feet and saw no difference the driving experience. Some of the youtube videos done by Boulder based The Fast Lane Car suggested that the altitude makes a difference and that their 0-60 MPH tests showed it. But at least for the torque needed to climb mountains, this CX-5 has plenty of it.

http://www.tflcar.com/2012/03/video...activ-gets-muddy-makes-good-first-impression/

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Nice review. Note that the tflcar review was done in 2012 for the 2013 AWD 2.0 model which is no longer offered. The 2.0 is relatively underpowered compared to some of the other small SUV competitors so this is felt more at altitude.

The 2.5 has the best power and torque per weight in the segment except for the turbo offerings of some competitors. The high CX-5 compression ratio allows 185 torque @ 3250 rpm while the peak torque of the non-turbo competitors is not as high and comes at 4000+ rpm.

btw - Very high altitude has (5000-10000 feet) has a very significant and measurable impact on power and performance of a normally aspirated engine, including all Skyactiv gassers.

I also live in Colorado at 9,000 feet. I feel no difference in power between being up in the mountains or down of the hills. The 2.5 moves perfectly.

I concur. Perfect ride for the Rockies.

StewieCO said:

I also live in Colorado at 9,000 feet. I feel no difference in power between being up in the mountains or down of the hills. The 2.5 moves perfectly.

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There is a logical explanation for this that I don't see discussed often.

Yes, it's a fact that normally aspirated engines lose power at a predictable rate due to air being less dense at altitude. However, it's also true that overcoming aerodynamic drag causes the primary consumption of energy at freeway speeds. And it is also true that aerodynamic drag decreases with air density at exactly the same rate as horsepower. There is still a performance hit at altitude but it is not as bad as the loss of horsepower would suggest due to the lower power requirement of pushing the car through the thinner air.

I feel this every time I ride over one of Colorado's high passes on my motorcycle. I remember thinking how odd it was that even at 90-100 mph my naturally aspirated motorcycle still felt like it had plenty of acceleration at altitude, even between 10,000-12,000 foot level of Independence Pass. At those speeds it didn't feel gutless as I expected it to but instead had comparable performance that I would expect at sea level. Then, after stopping at the summit for mandatory photo op, pulling back onto the pavement my motorcycle didn't want to lift the front tire towards the sky which is it's usual behavior when giving it a handful of throttle in first and second gears. At slow speeds there is no significant aerodynamic drag (unlike at high speed where I am accustomed to aerodynamic drag being the single biggest consumer of energy) and thus, the power that the engine had lost was proportionately more noticeable at slow speed than at higher speed.

Yesterday, I was driving on a fast mountain pass highway and, yes, I could feel a slight loss of power at higher altitudes, but at 70mph the CX-5 still felt almost as spritely at 5,000 feet as it does at sea-level. But I only had about 425 lbs. of passengers and baggage along. More weight would certainly make the loss of power more noticeable.

Some interesting findings there Mike.

Aero losses are lower at altitude and would help on flat ground but they would be small compared to the power needed to accelerate the cars mass or to lift it up the hill. That's when you will notice any lack of power. Gearing is another issue. Many vehicles are geared really high these days to bring rpm's down. The cx5 has lower gearing than many of the newest crop of SUV's (RAV4 and Forester for instance) so that helps, as well as the better torque curve of the skyactive engine which brings power on at lower RPM's.

jdbrian said:

Aero losses are lower at altitude and would help on flat ground but they would be small compared to the power needed to accelerate the cars mass or to lift it up the hill.

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The energy used to overcome aerodynamic drag will actually exceed the energy expended due to elevation gain if you drive fast enough. On a car like the CX-5 weighing in at around 3600 lbs. and climbing a 3% grade at sea level, the point at which aerodynamic drag would be the larger of the two losses would be about 80 mph.

That's because aerodynamic drag increases exponentially with speed but energy expended due to elevation gain only increases linearly as speeds become higher.