Thinking of buying a CX-5 but I have some questions first.

Thanks! Perhaps it will be different with Mazda.....I personally wouldn't be comfortable with it. Too many friends and family with issues with this tech from other automakers.
 
I have the 2018 and love it, It's my first Mazda. You can't beat the up graded interior for the price and how quiet it is. The sound system is excellent. For a 2.5 without turbo it has plenty of power. I have the GT with the premium package and I don't think I could live without HUD. IMO there is no better SUV for the price of the CX-5!
 
GS AWD? Grand Select trim? isn't that MY 2017 and you save only $500 by missing out on all the safety features?
 
@Bman: Didn't notice you only quoted one part. Hard to tell on mobile. That's how you properly use quote.
 
GS AWD? Grand Select trim? isn't that MY 2017 and you save only $500 by missing out on all the safety features?
That was in the US and GS was discontinued for 18. Canada still has it and it's different then ours was.
 
Hello everyone,

I am new here and I am here because my wife and I are looking at buying a CX-5. We just have some questions for the owners here.

My wife and I are a recently married young couple who are settling our first house and planning to start a family in the next 2-3 years. We live in a small rural town in Canada and commute about an hour total from home to work to home each day (the commute is half country roads and half city traffic). We are considering upgrading my car from a 10 year old Toyota Matrix to a smaller SUV (bigger than both our current cars but not giant).

We have been looking at various small SUVs (CR-V, RAV4, Escape, Rogue) and we thought we would try the CX-5 as a throw-in. It was the biggest surprise. I will say that I do have prior experience with Mazda as I have on occasion drove my brother's Mazda 3 a few years ago and really liked it. When I asked my brother about his 3 recently, he said "Mazdas are the best. My Mazda has given me no trouble at all except for routine maintenance (dead battery, dirty fuel injectors). I will buy another Mazda." As glowing a recommendation as you can get, but he does not drive it nearly as much as we will (he lives a big city and uses public transit for work - we would use the car everyday as we live in the country and commute into town).

What we liked the CX-5:

-We really like the very distinctive exterior: Flat out looks the best-looking one out of the bunch. We both kind of want a distinctive car, not in a "hey look at me!" way but in a subtle "that's their car" way. We live in a small rural town and majority of cars are North American (GM in particular).

-The upscale looking interior: We felt like we were sitting in a much more expensive car. A lot of the other SUVs had a whole whack of buttons in the center for the radio/infotainment system surrounded by hard plastic. The CX-5 felt cleaner and sleeker. I like how the infotainment controls are away from the screen. My big concern is that I don't want to have to rely on touching the screen rather than use the buttons if the buttons were around the screen (like all the other SUVs).

-The seats were very comfortable to sit in: Comfortable seats is a big thing for us because we do a fair bit of driving for work and for friends/family (most of whom live at least an hour away from us). I will say we only test drove it for about 15-20 minutes or so. Maybe we should test drive it again for longer, maybe even take it on the highway.

-It was very quiet to drive: This is much appreciated since my Matrix sounds like being on a sailing ship in a gale when driving on the highway.

-Push button start and E-Brake: A big win for the wife.

-Fuel economy: On paper, the CX-5 has better fuel economy than most of the other ones we've tried. Of course, it's how you drive the car which is important as well.

-Salesman: The sales manager gave us this wet-behind-the-ears salesguy and we were won over. The young salesguy had pure enthusiasm and actually owned the actual model that we were thinking of buying. He had started working at the dealerships for 4 month so a small part of us wants to buy the car for him. Of course that's a really bad way to buy a car. Also, he waited all week to follow up with me again, which was appreciated (most of the other dealerships left voice mails the next day, which we asked only to be contacted via email.

We are considering getting a GS AWD with no packages. No packages because the only thing we would really want is the Advanced Keyless and the rear vents, we don't need the moon-roof or separate climate controls. We can't reasonably afford the GT (the wife didn't want the wood trim anyway).

What we had questions on:

-Storage Space/Cargo room: To me, this is the biggest sticking point. Every single review of the car mentions the lack of cargo room and compares the amount of room in RAV4 & CR-V. One review* in particular said "the CX-5 is fit for making an entrance at a BBQ but a fantastic family hauler it isn't". Even my co-worker commented how he owned a Mazda Tribute and it "barely fit luggage. Don't think you can fit much and be able". At 59 cubic sq ft, that's only 10 more than my Matrix and 14 less than the RAV4. I'm curious to know how people on here with small kids do it. We are also still buying things for our house so there will be times where we will be carrying large items in the car (this won't be most of the time though). Even the center console felt small. Basically my question is do you wish you that the CX-5 was just a little bigger sometimes and would you still pick the CX-5 as your first family-hauler you own?

-Backseat/Family: For those with car seats (for babies and older), how much of a tight fit is with a carseat (forward and backward facing)? My oldest brother (not the Mazda3 one) said that when they were looking at a Ford Escape, they thought it was 'too small for a car seat'. This is coming from a person whose opinion I trust. With the CX-5 around the same size in the back, that's a little bit of a concern (tight fit for adults too maybe?). My brother ended up with a Subaru Outback by the way.

-Cylinder deactivation: It sounds very good in theory. My question is, at what speed during highway driving does cylinder deactivation kick in and how fast can you go before the cylinder deactivation kicks off (not talking about accelerating fast, just pure highway driving). For example, can I do 75mph/120kph on the highway in cruise control and cylinder deactivation kicks in? Or is it only at lower highway speeds?

-Infotainment system Part 1: Since the cupholders are right near the infotainment controls, have you ever spilled anything on the infotainment controls since buying the CX-5?

-Infotainment system Part 2: Is this your biggest grievance with the car and how much will it bother me? From what I've read, it seems to be. Either it's "too slow/outdated/weird/no AndroidAuto no AppleCarPlay/etc etc".

-Oomph: When driving it, I was surprised on how sluggish the car accelerated (considering this is the company of Zoom Zoom). Not like I need to be a NASCAR/F1 driver when the stoplight goes green, I was just expecting more go. Do you use the sport mode to compensate or do you just get use to the performance and change the way you drive?

-Winter: With snow tires, did you ever struggle in the winter with the intelligent all wheel drive and wished you rather had real all wheel drive or four wheel drive? Where we live, you can get quite heavy snowfalls.

-Winter Part 2: What are the start ups like in cold weather? In addition to heavy snowfalls, it can get very very cold at night.

-Servicing/Costs of Maintenance: Since Mazda is a smaller car manufacturer, we can expect the costs of maintaining the car to be higher. I know that the CX-5 would need synthetic oil which makes oil changes double the price. My question here is: Are we stuck to taking the car to the dealer for anything other than routine maintenance? Were the costs of owning the CX-5 higher than you thought?

-Reliability: With the recent news of the airbag recall, our enthusiasm was a bit tempered. Consumer reports rated Mazda around 12th out of 27** (right around Nissan, which I'm not sure is great considering the garbage reputation I always hear about Nissan and their CVT transmission in particular). Do you think the rating is accurate? Have you had more or less problems with the car than what you were expecting?

-Accessories: Which accessories did you get on yours? We were thinking a) Fog lights (or are they too small?) b) Cargo cover (surprisingly not standard) c) Door Visors d) Tow hitch maybe?

*Review: http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/20923/2018-mazda-cx-5-grand-touring-review-slaying-with-suburbanites-if-lacking-in-space
**Ratings: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/car-brands-reliability-how-they-stack-up/ Sorry for the long post, I just want to be thorough with the questions.

Sorry for the long post, I just want to be thorough with the questions.

Thank you in advance.

PS: Antoine approved this.

I love my cx5 in the application you stated. I live in a rural area 30 minutes from the nearest town of any size. It gets good mileage for what it is and how I use it, and I have 87,5xx on it. No complaints in the reliability dept. Its a 2015 touring awd 2.5. Maint. is as cheap as any Ford or GM I've owned. It's as close to an appliance as I've ever driven. Just get in and go from A to B, no problem.

That said, no way I'd buy any CUV right now until the new RAV4 drops for 2019 and I'd tried it out. On paper it's a class leader, it costs within a few hundred bucks, and in 5 years will be worth 3 to 5k more on trade than the cx5.
 
That said, no way I'd buy any CUV right now until the new RAV4 drops for 2019 and I'd tried it out. On paper it's a class leader, it costs within a few hundred bucks, and in 5 years will be worth 3 to 5k more on trade than the cx5.
While the new RAV4 looks much better than the current MY it still doesn't look as good as CX-5 and i doubt it will worth 3~5k more than CX5 after 5 years. (and it doesn't matter if you are leasing)
 
LookingIn, although no car will be perfect for you in every way, I think you'll find that the CX-5 is best you can find in its class. Once you've driven the competition, you'll find that the CX-5 is almost in a class by itself. It could be tweaked in any number of ways to make it more appealing to any individual, but until we can find a car company that will make one to our exact specifications [and that we can afford!], we'll have to settle for some compromises - lol. The CX-5 usually makes the right compromises, for my money. All of your questions are valid; most of the answers are positive, and none of the negative answers are deal breakers.

Most of us here are extremely happy with our cars.

I realize that posting on this forum, I wasn't expecting people to say "don't buy this car, it's a lemon!"
 
GS AWD? Grand Select trim? isn't that MY 2017 and you save only $500 by missing out on all the safety features?

The Touring Package requires the Comfort Package (moonroof, dualzone climate controls, rear vents, keyless entry, etc) before you can add the i-Activsense Package
Comfort Package is $1200 US / $1600 CAD
I-Activsense is $760 US / $1000 CAD
(given current exchange rates)

The GS/Touring model is near the top of our budget, depending how big of a downpayment we put down.
 
I love my cx5 in the application you stated. I live in a rural area 30 minutes from the nearest town of any size. It gets good mileage for what it is and how I use it, and I have 87,5xx on it. No complaints in the reliability dept. Its a 2015 touring awd 2.5. Maint. is as cheap as any Ford or GM I've owned. It's as close to an appliance as I've ever driven. Just get in and go from A to B, no problem.

That said, no way I'd buy any CUV right now until the new RAV4 drops for 2019 and I'd tried it out. On paper it's a class leader, it costs within a few hundred bucks, and in 5 years will be worth 3 to 5k more on trade than the cx5.

So is the depreciation/trade-in value the biggest issue for the CX-5 other than the infotainment system?
 
Now that I have a grandson the CX5 is terrible for anyone sitting in the front seat if they are tall. You have to move the seat up too far to make sure the car seat is properly installed.
 
I am 6 foot and my wife is 5 foot 5 ish.

I am 6'1", my wife is 5'8", my son is 6' and my daughter is 5'6". We routinely drive long distances (500-1200 miles R/T) in that car - even though we also have a mini-van! The kids don't complain and have plenty of room. In the front, we don't alter the front seats to accommodate the rear passengers. This is in a 2014. The 2018 might be a little different. Without doubt the mini van is better but it does not have a hitch for the bikes. ):
 
Gen2 CX-5 retains its value like a mofo compared to gen1. And gen1 is on par with Toyota in my opinion.
As I said, mazda is doing good overall and this helps resale as it becomes more desirable.
New CX-5 sold so many they had to start another plant. New cx8 outsold in Japan will now release in 3 more markets, new 6 sedan will kill it in EU and Australia.
China is now #1 market for Mazda and not USA.
 
Mazda said in 2016 that improving resale was one of it's big goals. They stopped offering huge incentives and CPO sales have taken off. They've succeeded. Resale is improving across the entire range.
 
So is the depreciation/trade-in value the biggest issue for the CX-5 other than the infotainment system?

I just have the Touring. I hear the infotainment on the other models is livable, but noone buys a CX5 for the infotainment. I'd rate it in the bottom 30% of options in its price-range, for that aspect solely. The screen is pretty small, for starters.
 
Gen2 CX-5 retains its value like a mofo compared to gen1. And gen1 is on par with Toyota in my opinion.
As I said, mazda is doing good overall and this helps resale as it becomes more desirable.
New CX-5 sold so many they had to start another plant. New cx8 outsold in Japan will now release in 3 more markets, new 6 sedan will kill it in EU and Australia.
China is now #1 market for Mazda and not USA.

Opinions are all well and good until you get to the dealer and they pull out KBB or price cars at Auction. It is NOT on par with the RAV4.

The Gen 2 CX5...it hasn't really been out long enough for us to see 3+ year trade values.
 
Mazda said in 2016 that improving resale was one of it's big goals. They stopped offering huge incentives and CPO sales have taken off. They've succeeded. Resale is improving across the entire range.

That's good, but I feel like we need to wait 3+ years to get an honest handle on it. Everyone said the Gen 1's had good resale back when I bought in 2015. Well. They don't. They are bottom of the class except for the Nissan Rogue, comparing 2014-2015 against other vehicles in its class.
 
While the new RAV4 looks much better than the current MY it still doesn't look as good as CX-5 and i doubt it will worth 3~5k more than CX5 after 5 years. (and it doesn't matter if you are leasing)

Based on my KBB comparison of my CX5 to a RAV4 of identical trim, mileage, and year, the RAV is indeed worth about 3-4K more. Noone can say what t he future holds, but Toyota has always and will always hold value better than a Mazda.

Looks are too subjective. It could be a total turd and if OP liked how it looks, he would/she would be inclined towards it. That said, on paper, it absolutely out-does the CX5 in every possible way. I'd wait to see/drive one before writing it off, for sure.
 
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