Does anyone know for sure if sport mode on the CX-5 does anything at all to pedal response, or does it just only raise the shift points?
I really love my 2019 CX-5 and this is coming from someone that typically has owned sports sedans with higher HP to weight ratio and tracked my Volvo S60R chipped to 355 HP. I work from home, don't drive a alot, have a 1-car garage now, and have had my fair share of speeding tickets so I've gotten conservative in my "old age" (51) and just wanted something that had a quiet interior, nice interior finish, good suspension, and rock solid reliabilty. CX-5 hit the bullseye. My first Mazda. They really engineer their cars well for the price point.
I've noticed though in everyday driving, if I need to make quick pass, especially going up a hill, you don't always automatically think or have time to flip the sport mode switch. In many of those cases I find the words "come on Sally" popping into my head as far as waiting for the downshift. I don't like the feeling of just stomping the pedal to the floor as hard/fast as I can all the time. I also hear the ECU learns your driving style so if you drive like a Grandpa like me most all the time, the ECU is probably now in what other cars label "Eco mode" LOL. Many have mentioned in that case you notice a difference right after you do an ECU reset to tell the car to relearn your driving style. But to keep doing that would be ridiculous.
I found a couple tuners that will do a remote tune where you log data with a laptop, send them a file, they adjust your calibration to take advantage of running higher octane fuel all the time (91 instead of 87 in NA) and you can recalibrate back to stock whenever you want (before going to the dealer.) The problem is those are about $600 and you're probably only going to get 7%-8% HP increase at best. Fairly expensive and some hassle for not a lot of benefit. (Just trade in for the Turbo later.)
However the most knowledgeable of the tuners I spoke to suggested I try the Pedal Commander and guaranteed I would love it both of us knowing full well it doesn't actually increase the car's horsepower. I'm thinking of trying it too for the reasons stated above. It would be sort of a way to have the car in semi-sport mode all the time and therefore when you need some quick acceleration in a pinch, the cars going to have a quicker reaction and you don't have to put the pedal to the floor at the same time as flipping the sport mode switch. You could still go very light on the pedal in every day driving to preserve max fuel economy I assume.
The $300 may be worth it to me to not have those "come on Sally" moments anymore.
Oh and on a side note after lots of research I did find confirmation from people in other forums, one of which did a dyno test (report link expired) that these cars will make a little more horsepower with using 91 instead of 87. About 2.5% which is about 4-5 HP on the 187HP CX5. It's something you're not going to notice but it has the most benefit in hot temps under high load as it reduces the chance the ECU pulls back the timing to avoid knocking. In my area to fill up with 91 instead of 87 is about $4-$5 more and I only fill up twice a month.
So I've concluded, assuming the pedal commander is all it's cracked up to be, running 91 with a pedal commander should give you an overall more sporty driving experience in the CX-5. Flip sport mode on too and that's about as good as you're going to get on this car without resorting to some aftermarket performance mods for much more money but if you're doing that, you bought the wrong car in the first place in my opinion. It's a fricking mid-level SUV geared toward high economy for Peet Sake.