- :
- Plano, Texas, USA
Received the invitation to Mazda CX-5 Ride & Drive Event held by Mazda North American Operations on April 28th via an email:
The Shops at Park Lane
8080 Park Lane, Dallas, TX 75231
Saturday, May 6 11am 7pm
Sunday, May 7 11am 7pm
The location is near the most prestige North Park shopping mall in Dallas. I was wondering how can we have a good test drive experience in that area where even the parking space is scarce. I urged my wife to go with me especially she might be able to do some shopping afterwards. We went in the morning as we wanted to beat the crowd. It took us driving around for 20 minutes and couldn't find the place. We parked our 2016 CX-5 GT AWD in the parking ramp and started calling Security for The Shops at Park Lane as nobody answered from other phone lines. We finally got direction and it's in walking distance from us. We saw several people wearing black Mazda T-shirt and trying to talk into pedestrians passing by to test drive the new Mazda CX-5. The girl was happy as we actually were willing to do it without even say anything to us. I only signed up for passenger and wife as a driver. She needed to take breathalyzer which is our first experience of doing it.
There're 5 2017 CX-5's for the event and only 1 is AWD. Of course we requested the AWD CX-5 which has beautiful Soul Red Crystal. Bruce who is the "Product Specialist" rode with us and I was sitting in the back. New CX-5 is definitely lower as I felt I was sitting in a hatch-back instead of a CUV. For some reason the rear seating area is tighter than 1st-gen CX-5. The first thing Bruce started to talk was Mazda has put lots of efforts to quiet down the interior. Unfortunately the event area is crowded with slow-moving vehicles and Bruce didn't let my wife to get on the Central Expressway. The whole test drive basically is a one-block circling around and back to the event location with a total driving time about 5 minutes of stop-and-go traffic. After the test drive was done my wife said the new CX-5 AWD feels nimbler and peppier than our old CX-5 AWD. She prefers lower ground clearance and the smaller hatch-back feeling. She likes the red color and she would want a 2017 CX-5 instead of a 2016.5 I was searching for replacing our hail-damaged 2016 CX-5. She did complain to Bruce that there's no CD player and was bothered by the constantly-on headlights with DRLs (after I made her aware of that of course!
)
I declined to do this kind of short test drive in a very limited environment. I can do much better at my Mazda dealer.
It's funny Bruce insisted 2017 CX-5 has a "tan" interior until I wanted him to check the Mazda website! He still swore he personally saw one and I told him that 2017 CX-5 with tan interior must be a special-made CX-5 for his MNAO CEO!
Bruce also suggested giving any comments about 2017 CX-5 at MNAO website and he guaranteed someone will read it. (whistle)
The Shops at Park Lane
8080 Park Lane, Dallas, TX 75231
Saturday, May 6 11am 7pm
Sunday, May 7 11am 7pm
The location is near the most prestige North Park shopping mall in Dallas. I was wondering how can we have a good test drive experience in that area where even the parking space is scarce. I urged my wife to go with me especially she might be able to do some shopping afterwards. We went in the morning as we wanted to beat the crowd. It took us driving around for 20 minutes and couldn't find the place. We parked our 2016 CX-5 GT AWD in the parking ramp and started calling Security for The Shops at Park Lane as nobody answered from other phone lines. We finally got direction and it's in walking distance from us. We saw several people wearing black Mazda T-shirt and trying to talk into pedestrians passing by to test drive the new Mazda CX-5. The girl was happy as we actually were willing to do it without even say anything to us. I only signed up for passenger and wife as a driver. She needed to take breathalyzer which is our first experience of doing it.
There're 5 2017 CX-5's for the event and only 1 is AWD. Of course we requested the AWD CX-5 which has beautiful Soul Red Crystal. Bruce who is the "Product Specialist" rode with us and I was sitting in the back. New CX-5 is definitely lower as I felt I was sitting in a hatch-back instead of a CUV. For some reason the rear seating area is tighter than 1st-gen CX-5. The first thing Bruce started to talk was Mazda has put lots of efforts to quiet down the interior. Unfortunately the event area is crowded with slow-moving vehicles and Bruce didn't let my wife to get on the Central Expressway. The whole test drive basically is a one-block circling around and back to the event location with a total driving time about 5 minutes of stop-and-go traffic. After the test drive was done my wife said the new CX-5 AWD feels nimbler and peppier than our old CX-5 AWD. She prefers lower ground clearance and the smaller hatch-back feeling. She likes the red color and she would want a 2017 CX-5 instead of a 2016.5 I was searching for replacing our hail-damaged 2016 CX-5. She did complain to Bruce that there's no CD player and was bothered by the constantly-on headlights with DRLs (after I made her aware of that of course!
)I declined to do this kind of short test drive in a very limited environment. I can do much better at my Mazda dealer.
It's funny Bruce insisted 2017 CX-5 has a "tan" interior until I wanted him to check the Mazda website! He still swore he personally saw one and I told him that 2017 CX-5 with tan interior must be a special-made CX-5 for his MNAO CEO!
Bruce also suggested giving any comments about 2017 CX-5 at MNAO website and he guaranteed someone will read it. (whistle)
