New CX-5 GTR / Two CX-5 family

Bird-Dog

2017 CX-5 Touring 2020 CX-5 GTR
Just joined Mazdas247, but longtime Mazda fan. I owned a couple of MX-5 Miatas back in the 1990's, though they're long gone now.

We've have a 2017 CX-5 Touring (silver) my wife's been driving for three years that just came off lease. She absolutely loved it. So, we recently leased her a new 2020 CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve (gray)... AND we bought out the lease on the 2017 and are keeping it too. As great as it is having the 2017 at my disposal to augment my old e46 BMW 330Ci convertible, she's having a hard time keeping me out of her GTR with its 2.5T. Such a blast to drive!

Mazda-Pair-2.jpg
 
Welcome. Nice cars.
We have a 16 Touring and when time came to replace my wife's CR-V she opted for the 19 GTR.
Same color as yours.
 
Just joined Mazdas247, but longtime Mazda fan. I owned a couple of MX-5 Miatas back in the 1990's, though they're long gone now.

We've have a 2017 CX-5 Touring (silver) my wife's been driving for three years that just came off lease. She absolutely loved it. So, we recently leased her a new 2020 CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve (gray)... AND we bought out the lease on the 2017 and are keeping it too. As great as it is having the 2017 at my disposal to augment my old e46 BMW 330Ci convertible, she's having a hard time keeping me out of her GTR with its 2.5T. Such a blast to drive!

View attachment 226289
The one in the back looks very light blue. Maybe its my monitor.
 
There is some blue reflection on both windshields. No doubt because blue light is very prominent in the daytime, hence the blue sky.
 
A little more background to add context to why the 2020 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve was the PERFECT choice for our new car acquisition this year (technically my wife's daily driver)...

ME: I'm a car enthusiast from way back. Driving dynamics, handling, and yes, good looks are all very important to me. Triumph Spitfire and an Alfa Romeo GTV back in the 1970's, Chevy Z28, Datsun 280Z and BMW 528i in the 80's, a couple of Miatas to augment a company car in 90's, BMW 325Ci and 330CI ZHP convertibles in the 2000's (still have the ZHP).

MY WIFE: Comfort and convenience are of utmost importance to her in a car. She loved her Honda Accords back in the 90's, then transitioned to mini-vans when the kids came along. Aside from the amount of room in her first Chrysler Town & Country van and the ease of loading kids, and car seats, and strollers, she was most impressed with the cup holders (LOL). She's also frugal and simply isn't open to allowing monthlies to go above a certain point.

Though we ran that last mini-van as long as we could, she started getting the itch for something else long before it was used up. At the time my BMW convertible was my daily driver, so we still needed the utility a sedan could not provide, and I talked her into going with an SUV.

2010 Ford Edge: Her first SUV was a low-mileage 2010 Ford Edge we bought used in 2013. We both liked it. I thought it was rather handsome for an SUV, and she found it comfortable to drive... until... until she started lamenting the lack of such modern features as Blue Tooth, and I had an occasion to need to drive it really hard in an emergency situation and found the heavy torque steer under load very troubling. So, on to the next one.

2011 BMW X5: Kids now driving their own cars. I wanted her to have something more prestigious with better road manners. Found a great deal on a used BMW X5 4.8i. I loved it. She hated it. Luxurious or not, she was never happy with the ergonomics and found the admittedly cumbersome technology more puzzling than helpful. Less than two years later we decided it was time to put her back into a brand new car again.

The Hunt: As usual, she had no clear idea of what she wanted, only a budget we had to stay under. But we were agreed that we still needed an SUV in the family. So I began the search for the right fit. I would have liked to see her in another (more up to date) BMW like an X3, or an AUDI or Mercedes Benz. But the budget would prevail and we were determined not to settle for a used one with less-than-current-state-of-the-art technology.

We test drove an Infiniti QX30 and liked it. But we missed an outstanding incentive deal by a month and decided to wait to see if it came back. In the meantime I took a stab at a Mercedes GLA, but couldn't make a deal to stay under budget.

We test drove a VW Tiguan and both hated it from the very start. It had a laggy turbo and lost traction while trying to make a spirited right turn entry into traffic during the test drive. And hard, flat, uncomfortable seats. Forget that one. Peeked at some Lexus model or other on their lot and really hated the shifter (the weird shifter on the X5 had been one of its sticking points for her). Didn't even bother test driving. Plus I hold a long festering hatred of Toyotas from too many bad experiences with rental cars. Thought I could overcome that with their prestige brand, but no can do... and, naturally enough, I wouldn't even consider a RAV4.

Nissan? Ugly, with cheap interior. Honda? The local dealership so PO'd my wife when trying to trade-in her last Accord for an Odyssey 20-years ago that she swore she'd never have another. Didn't even bother. Hyundai or Kia? Maybe. Stopped by a dealer to look, but they were so under-staffed we decided to come back later... and never did. Mitsubishi? Don't make me laugh. Buick? Looked. Thought the MSRP's were ridiculously high for what they were. Ford or Chevrolet. Again, maybe. But both relatively low on the list. Maybe later when we have time.

What else? Oh yeah, Zoom-Zoom. I've always been an Mazda fan; let's take a look. We went to go test drive a CX-5 and both absolutely fell in love at first sight. Not unexpectedly, it drove great. And from every pore it absolutely exuded Mazda's then-newly-declared mission to move upscale into premium appointments at a mainstream price.

2017 Mazda CX-5 Touring: As much as I would have liked to go for the Grand Touring we had a bit of a problem keeping the monthlies down. At the time our state legislature had totally screwed the leasing industry by requiring sales tax on the entire value of the car to be rolled in, rather than the previously longstanding policy of applying it only to the capitalized cost. But the Touring still had most everything we wanted besides leather and 19" wheels (not that I'm a fan of the "pizza" wheels from that era anyway). So we "settled" for the Touring and got a good deal on it after some negotiating. (Narrator: "They weren't really settling. They liked the Touring a lot")

My wife absolutely loved, loved, loved her first CX-5. So, when the clock started ticking down on the lease there was zero doubt we were going for another Mazda. We considered moving down into the new CX-30. Test drove one and liked it. But once we ran the numbers on the top trim level against a CX-5 GT it was close enough that we dropped that idea and went full-speed-ahead for another CX-5. Well that, and we found Mazda's decision to put either a blue or brown dash cap on an otherwise all black CX-30 interior a little off-putting.

So how did we end up with a Reserve? Well, of course, I was pining for it as soon as I saw the numbers on the turbo engine. And I liked the idea of added versatility, or at least potential safety, of AWD, which I knew she probably wouldn't go for as an upgrade on the GT.

The first challenge was to get my wife behind the wheel of a GTR and convince her the turbo would not be like her old Mercur XR4Ti she had way-back-when. You could eat lunch waiting for the turbo to kick in on it, so bad was the lag. But get her behind the wheel of a CX-5 GTR I did. And... she liked it! Though not being a very aggressive driver, and even less so on a test drive, she said she didn't notice much difference from her 2017. But when my turn came, lead-foot that I am, the difference was immediately noticeable. And what a difference!

The final challenge was that pesky budget thing. We tried to make a deal on the only GTR on our closest local dealer's lot whom we'd leased the 2017 from (and Signatures were nowhere to be found at the time, BTW). It was the same silver color as her 2017, and she'd really wanted to go with a gray one this time. But what the heck; it was there. I tried for a week to even get solid numbers from them. When they finally sent them, it was clearly not going to work.

At that point we resolved that we'd probably have to go with the GT instead. But I decided to shop it around for a bit first. I tried two other dealers by email. One had a gray GTR on the lot and came across right away with better numbers, but still not quite where we needed to be. The other one quoted numbers I could hardly believe, but said they'd have to see if they find us the color we wanted since they didn't have one in stock. So, perhaps two sticking points. 1) I was skeptical that they weren't including tax in their quote, or that there was some other hidden charge they were leaving out. -and- 2) Would they be able to find us the one we wanted? I told them they had a deal if the numbers were true and they could find us one.

Well sure enough, the next day they said they'd found us a gray GTR they could have trucked in from another out-of-state dealership, though that would take a few days. Their numbers were indeed spot-on with no surprises, and a good $75 & $50 a month lower than the other two dealers, respectively (still not quite sure how that happened!). All this was handled by phone and email. We never visited the dealership, 20 miles away, until the day we went to pick it up. And within a few days it did arrive. So off we went, though both dreading a repeat of the several-hours long ordeals we'd been through buying cars before. But not this time. We were in-and-out in 45-minutes including a cursory test drive. Incredible!

So here we are now, both with broad grins on our faces, proud of the most perfect car we've ever chosen for my wife (and perfect for the both of us ;)). Plus, in the end, a new dealer we'll no doubt buy from again after the most pleasant buying experience ever too! Only catch is, with both of us working from home during the pandemic we're coming up on two months with our perfect new GTR and we've barely put 100 miles on it so far.

Still, the moral to the story is a good one. I'm sure I'm not the only "car guy" (or "car gal") out there with a spouse whose outlook runs more to the practical. And IMO the Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring Reserve is perhaps the most ideal vehicle you can buy that suits both sensibilities to a tee!
 
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