Recent content by sonoran

"Intelligence" and "car dealership" is an oxymoron

Sure, in terms of ease and convenience it's easier to just do a deal with your local dealership. And there's nothing wrong with that per se. Maybe you value your time more than anything, maybe you don't want to hassle dealing with multiple dealers, maybe you have enough money that this isn't...

Sure there are things that can be done to manipulate anything. But think about how much better your situation is when you have another bid in your pocket, and/or a set of dealers you've already contacted that you can go back to and say Dealer "X" didn't work out, can you meet their price? When...

Well if the Internet Sales Rep isn't trustworthy call the dealer back and talk to the Sales manager and tell them you want to deal with another rep. If the dealership as a whole is untrustworthy... well, what can you do except cross them off the list? Better you found out over the phone than...

You might want to try this: = Look through the "Current Selling Price for a CX-5" thread here and know what you consider to be a reasonable price for your exact Model/Trim/Color before you begin. = Best time to do this is during the last week of the month, but timed so your purchase will...

My tweeters were screechy/slightly distorted sounding at a certain high frequency pitch when I first got them. After about a month of break-in time this went away and now they sound great. Not uncommon for speakers to improve with time.

The CX-5 is one of the best looking CUV's on the market, so yeah I get that. Still you might want to drive the Forrester before you write it off completely. It's not as nice inside, and the CX-5 has better road manners, but the Forrester is probably the most capable CUV (other than the...

I live down a mile of dirt road, with a couple of decent hills on it. In the summer when we get monsoons it can get a little torn up. The CX-5 FWD does fine, it's no rock crawler but on a moderately rough unpaved road it's fine. I've done quite a bit of more serious off-roading in my time and...

Small World :)

2003 Xterra XE: 180hp/202 ft.-lbs 2003 Xterra SE: 210hp/246ft-lbs 2015 Xterra (all models): 261hp/281 ft-lbs

My daughter is starting her second year in college in Meadville PA (after having grown up in So. AZ), last year seemed to be pretty mild from what I understand but I'm sure she'll get a dose of deep freeze one of these years. I can understand why you'd want a new car after reading the history...

I bought a new soul red CX-5 that was being shipped when I closed the deal, I picked it up 3 hours after it had arrived at the dealership. It had no swirl marks or scratches when I took possession.

The Mazda 3/CX-5 is unibody (although with stiffening structures), the Xterra is body on frame ("C" channel with full box ends, if it's like my '91 Pathfinder).

The CX-5 is a far superior road car, no doubt about it; as you'd expect compared to a 14 year old car set up for offroad. Going from my 26 year old Pathfinder to the 2017 CX-5 was a revelation! But the Xterra is going to be much more capable in deep snow and snow on unplowed roads. 2.5" more...

What makes you so concerned about your heater core? I mean I understand that consequence of that given the climate you're in, but that's not a part that's particularly prone to failure. Do you have signs that it's having issues? I'm not really familiar with the Xterra, but I own a '91...