My CX-5 purchase

hooked said:

Also don't get black if swirl marks bother you or you'll be polishing your car every weekend.

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That's one of the many reasons I got the Venture Guard. No swirl marks or scratches

I'm a detailer at heart and on the detailing forum that I frequent, those protective films are not thought of kindly. Maybe it takes away business. I don't have any experience with them. It obviously works for you. But you don't cover the whole car with it, right? It makes me said to see swirl marks on any part of the car. :'(

inodes said:

The stick that resets the trip meter also has a knob on it that adjusts the brightness. At night, you can change the brightness easily while you drive. But if for any reason, you need daylight brightness at night, turn it all the way to maximum. The maximum setting is forced day mode. When you switch into this mode, you hear a beep to let you know it's maximum day mode.

Very easy! Don't need to worry about menus.

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Thanks inodes, that's exactly what I needed. I do like driving with the lights on during the day, that useful tip did the trick.

The other thing I noticed, if I leave the headlights on and leave the vehicle, there's no warning beep to let me know I forgot to turn them off. I checked the manual and this seems to be a setting only the dealer can change. I was surprised this was turned off by default, I'll ask the dealer to turn it on next time I take it in to the dealer.

The "Smart Turn" option for the signal lever that flashes 3 times when you use it was also turned off by default and I was able to turn that on myself using the setup.

The bluetooth connectivity for playing audio and for hands free calls works really well. The accept-call/hangup buttons on the steering wheel are really handy, and the voice prompts are useful. The audio stops and switches to the phone and then resumes automatically after you hang-up. This is all probably standard for most cars equipped with hands-free option, but it's the first time I'm using hands free option in a car and I'm liking it a lot. I remember reading someone on the forum saying audio on their iphone/ipod was skipping or playing at higher speed, and I encountered that once this morning, although it hasn't returned since. Not sure if this is an Apple issue or has something to do with the bluetooth connectivity.

I also found this smart start guide which might be useful to potential buyers.
2013_CX5_QT.pdf

A couple more pictures for those who requested.

The white looks really good on the CX-5 and will still look good years from now. If the base manual came in that color it would definitely be my choice. I had a white 1999 Miata that I sold to my neighbor who still uses it as his daily driver. That car is 13 years old and the paint still looks great.

'caffeinated puppy' - that may be my new fuelly username for the cx-5. It describes the manual perfectly.

Good pictures of the white. The more I see and read about the white on this forum, the more I'm liking it. It may take some convincing of the wife since she has fallen for the sky blue after I showed her a few pictures. I was leaning away from the darker colors, but on my Sunday morning stalking of the local dealers lot this morning, they had two of the darker blues, and even dirty, they sparklered in the sun light. And looked good with the lighter interior. Decisions, decisions. I'll be up in Boston in about a month pickeing my daughter up from school, so I'll keep my eyes open for blackhairredsox's white one. I have yet to see a CX-5 on the road anywhere around Baltimore.

mddriver said:

Good pictures of the white. The more I see and read about the white on this forum, the more I'm liking it. It may take some convincing of the wife since she has fallen for the sky blue after I showed her a few pictures. I was leaning away from the darker colors, but on my Sunday morning stalking of the local dealers lot this morning, they had two of the darker blues, and even dirty, they sparklered in the sun light. And looked good with the lighter interior. Decisions, decisions. I'll be up in Boston in about a month pickeing my daughter up from school, so I'll keep my eyes open for blackhairredsox's white one. I have yet to see a CX-5 on the road anywhere around Baltimore.

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I was leaning at first to the darker colors myself at first, but the darker blue that you have in the USA ended up not being available here and I was not so sure about black, so I stuck with white (some shots of it in the pictures thread) like my previous Mazda3 was and so far I'm not regretting it.

Thanks all, especially inodes, lando and blackhairwhitesox.... I think I've pretty much decided on the white just seeing blackhair's pictures above... and the comments on black all over aren't the greatest but black looks pretty slick on the cx-5 probably better than white. But I plan to keep this for 6 yrs so the white might be the way to go for me. The wife I guess has the "final" call... lol