"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
06/01/2014 at 12:50 • Filed to: Mazda
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"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
06/01/2014 at 12:50 • Filed to: Mazda | 1
| 3 |
I took an eight day vacation trip to Buffalo, NY. I lived there for eight years at one point and moved out with a wife and child. The consequence of this means I have to take them all back there to visit the in-laws and relatives every other year or so. Enterprise agreed to rent a Camry (or similar) for my eight day visit. They did not have any mid-size car on arrival so a free upgrade landed me the 2014 Mazda CX-5. It looks good and Enterprise wanted me in this car so bad they told me to give them nearly $400 for a $500+ rental and to pay for my own nearly $4 NY-state taxed gas and I could shut up about it. (Honestly, they were very nice and this free upgrade was a good deal in the end.) This article is from the standpoint of reviewing a car without making the family inside throw up. I know that reviewing a slushomatic crossover SUV is sacrilege on a Jalopnik oriented website, but a growing number of us have to find something for our families to ride in that the wife approves of. In the end, this car hits right on target. (all pictures: ME)
EXTERIOR: This is the first KODO - Soul of Motion Mazda design language. I like their styling. It looks nice and not overly aggressive. Liberal use of plastic trim is at hand to 'protect' all edges of this car's front lip, rockers, lower bumper, the lower part of the doors as well. In fact opening the door reveals a few inches of plastic hanging below the door's lower metal edge. Styling and gap seal for sure but it adds some suspect chintz to the end package where everything else is wonderfully fitted and finished. No complaints overall, just some things I noticed. It's a good looking car costume covering the standard space all cross SUV's need.
INTERIOR: Twice, while the car was running, my right foot nailed the accelerator when getting in. It is hinged very low on the floor so the foot cannot slip under it or around it and the pedal is right where you would put your foot if you step-in. RPM go Zinng!!! Otherwise, that being the only real fault, there isn't any cheap crap for the entry level car here. Everything was sturdy and felt solid to the touch. I always hit the dashboard with a fist checking the hollow echo of the dashboard cave beneath. I would swear it is solid composite all the way through. The doors closed with a nice thump and when driving it was as close to silent as you could get. We had normal conversation volume during the drive and the baby's crying was much louder than expected because there was almost zero wind noise. Tire noise is very limited, that was a very nice thing to find on an entry level small SUV. Visibility is great from side to side. Blind spots are relatively easy to see, more so than my '08 RAV4 but not by much, however they do have the blind spot monitoring system. (discussed later) The only issue with interior noise was the usual automatic transmission's library quiet whirring up and down with the RPM that we always hear with any small car automatic (ie: ford focus) We tolerate it because it isn't too intrusive and won't interrupt your studies. Besides it's only heard in town driving, not on the highway. The engine when idling had an odd buzz to it, but that is the engine itself and not the interior's fault. That buzz is the injection system being all skyactiv-y with its directness. When revved up on moderate acceleration, it adds to the enjoyable engine note. Wives might not like this aspect, being an engine that you can hear, but my wife liked it quite a bit! Oh yeah, the controls are all easy to grab and use-intuitive to control.
COMFORT/ACCESS: Nice. Comfortable seats. We drove it 250 miles right away up the highway from Cleveland to Buffalo. At the end of the 3+ hour drive, my butt-o-meter was happily comfortable. My wife is short-ish and has a fused lower vertebrae. She also really liked the seats. After the trip we got into our RAV-4 (2008) and were immediately missing the CX-5 seats. The kid test above shows that with the seat adjusted for long distance comfort for my 34 inch inseam, the feet and legs of a 5-year old can only press into my kidneys a little bit. Kicking would not be an issue unless it was a concerned effort of revenge on her behalf for deliberately passing an ice cream stand. Points against: My daughter lost a marker cap down in between the 60/40 split seats. Retrieving it involved discovery of an access problem. The back seats are not designed for kids. The reason? They do not slide forward and backward. This is not really a big deal however when things drop down between the seats, it would be nice to be able to retrieve said things. It is impossible to reach under them from the front side, there are plastic things in the way. The center arm-rest was flipped down and this is where I discovered the cargo carpeting meets with the carpeting on the back of the seats and clips together with industrial plastic trim spikes. They had to be pried apart to expose the areas behind the seats when tilted down and then my hand had to be a medium glove size to comfortable retrieve anything down in there where, also, the electrical connection cables lived. I can only imagine how cheerios and straw wrappers and old dry french fries can be vacuumed when the nozzle wont fit. Lord knows my hand wouldn't and the tweezer-like action of my fat fingers took multiple attempts to grab anything down there.
SPACE: Adequate for a family vacation. In this picture is a large hockey gear sized duffel bag, medium sized back-pack, regulation sized 22 inch suit case, kids backpack, kids suit case, umbrella stroller, stuffed puppy, big momma purse sized cooler bag. there was more room left over especially if someone were more efficient at playing Tetris than I am. The overall space is limited in these types of SUV's because of the slanted back glass. If you have two kids, they will have the room they need until they reach tween years and then they won't have anywhere to put all their tween-age crap, but that is an issue between you and your kids management of their stuff, not with Mazda building this car. Up front there is a cubby in the arm rest that can hold quite a few things and one in front of the gear stick that can hold the key fobs because there is nowhere else for them to go! They can't hang from the keys because there are no keys. Now we have to have an extra place for them to be besides your pocket as the wife and kids need air-conditioning in the car. Getting out and walking away into the store with the car running and the fobs accidentally left in your pocket might cause a problem. Overall for a family, if you are doing outdoor camping gear stuff, a roof box will aid the extras for that duty just fine and you now have a full vacation capable car. Don't expect to dig out your kids' lost items.
ACCELERATION: Honestly, the little engine is Doug Flutie. Small and not very impressive on paper in this 3,500 pound car, but when given the ball (foot put into it) it surprises. Acceleration is sprightly and capable. Getting up to highway speeds is no problem at all, in fact I was wondering if Mazda had small v-6's again until I opened the hood. It felt like alot more than 155hp with that close ratio 6-speed automatic. the power band was always 'on'. this is with a family of 4 inside. Oh yeah, because of the somewhat buzzy nature of the engine and its injection method, it sounds quite nice when revving out. My wife said so-it must be true.
BRAKING: I didn't have the occasion to really get into them with kids in the car but once or twice I had a surprise reaction and found them to grab very well. I'm sure they're wonderful.
RIDE: This was a very very nice part of the trip. Buffalo roads are equivalent to the skin of an unwashed fourteen-year old boy. Cratered and impact scarred, broken up with occasional smoothness of soon to be destroyed asphalt. When I lived in Buffalo for eight years, I personally witnessed a repaving in the spring that had pot-holes developing that fall before winter began. Substandard does not even begin to describe their road maintenance. They blame the condition heavily on the winter weather but I feel confident that explanation is a band-aid to the real problem of quality material and work and of course budget. With that out of the way I'll return to the ride. VERY nice. VERY smooth and it takes the bumps quite well. This vehicle is dynamically wonderful but I cannot put it on par with luxury cars. I had a time in my life when an '87 Mercedes 300 turbo diesel was in the family. The CX-5 car is not that good, but it is getting quite close to that level. they did their homework. I recommend you do not leave this one out of your shopping.
HANDLING: This was only explored at the upper limits of kids in the car seats speeds, however I can feel the inklings of very good grip. I experienced very little lean in the city driving conditions and freeway on ramps with in-turn accelerations being tractable and direct without inducing further leaning or weirdness to the front suspension whatsoever. Quite a stable platform that i'm sure yields good results when driven by yourself on a curvy road...for all the curvy road crossover SUV driving you want to do.
GEARBOX: Six-speed auto manual. (Apologies for the picture angle.) The first several gears are short ratio and the engine power delivery is excellent as it shifts to third by 30mph. The shifting isn't sudden or notchy but you do feel it. When slowing down it does downshift on it's own and is a bit odd in feel. I mean that in the coasting sense. No longer is there coasting in the automatic. It downshifted and the engine was braking the car slightly as i come down through 30-25 mph. It is not abrupt, I just feel it happening and the engine note picks up a little bit. The selector is solid and fels nice but my wife commented that the 'trigger' that you squeeze to shift pinched her finger a little bit on the side. Using the manual mode yielded quick downshifts, if it let you, and the up-shifts are not quite a second in delay. I do not understand a laggy computer overridden manual mode in an SUV for any reason other than winter driving or hill/descent work. Of course this means that winter driving is the only reason to have this feature. Who is doing off road work in a front drive SUV car thingy?
TOYS/AUDIO: Dude we're rolling with radar. The side mirrors have orange indicators in the top corners that light up whenever any car is in your blind spot, and if you flip on the turn signal for a lane change while it is illuminated, a triple beep sounds letting you know to check around. It was actually useful because most of Buffalo's roads are 1.5 lanes wide but everyone makes them a two-lane. It's not painted to designate a two-lane but everyone just makes it up as they go along so blind spot checking has to be habitual, especially since the fir right lane you are in suddenly becomes curb-side parking and you need to change to the left quickly while bouncing over the craters.
Infotainment. This radio and Nav system has very good sound, all adjustable by touching the screen. The blue tooth system was easy to use and hooked up with the phone every time I got into the car. I never had to sync it again. Using the system to make a call worked flawlessly and the sound of that call was great, according to my wife. The Nav function was not usable in the base model rental car.
The screen changes to a wide angle rear view camera that has extremely good night resolution when reverse is selected. There is a grid of lines showing you the edges of the car's space and ranges. The ranged are not listed but the closest red line is exactly 18 inches from the bumper, making placement perfect and easy. I had no idea I liked it that much until I get back into my old RAV4. It is absolutely wonderful for situational awareness but I can see way too many people using the blind spot thing and this as a dependent method of driving and never using their own eyes outside.
The center console contains within, a cigarette power socket, a USB port that I successfully used to charge my phone at one point, and an aux-input for your beat up crusty old mp3 player you got free from your parents if you still use such a thing or if you refuse to use the Bluetooth in the car and would much prefer a male-male headphone cord from your phone to the car. Quite possibly your phone is so old Bluetooth didn't exist when it was made but then neither did headphone jacks on phones then. Either way, use the friggin' blue tooth. Using your phone in Buffalo while driving is a $100 ticket plus an $80 surcharge. Go ahead, ask my wife how I know this!
VALUE: If you were to buy this car, it starts at $21,000. As a rental it perfectly has, for the family, everything you want. I don't need anything more in this car than what it comes with. This is the base model. It has the back up camera. It has the smart infotainment system that hooks up to the phone. It has very comfortable seats that are power adjusted. It has grunt to get to 60 in a family-reasonable amount of time. It gets wonderful highway mileage. There is very little desirable that I could want over what this base model has, except for it to be squashed into a Mazdaspeed-6 manual wagon. However, the rental company did not have that and here I am actually liking what this vehicle delivers! I can spend more and get adaptive headlights that move when I turn but honestly that's moving into the "That's nice" area instead of something that is really useful. I have read that if you live in foggy areas or places with misty night conditions, those lights do become very useful and might be worth the $1,000+ extra package purchase. You probably get a nav system with that and I bet you could talk the sales dude into some extra floor mats.
TOTALS: I really have no idea how to rack and grade each area as a point out of 10. This car is better than my RAV4 from 2008 in all areas with the exception of the rear seats and storage area. (RAV is easier to use with kids messes and there is a appreciated but only slightly greater space in the back.)
engine: 2.0 liter 4-cylinder SKYACTIVE - gas direct injection. 2.5 liter version available and easily pushes the 2.0 into the school locker.
power: 155hp, 150lbs. tq. (2.5 has 184 hp / 185 tq)
transmission: 6-speed auto + manual useless mode. I guess it could help make you feel better about the car and a being a dad with kids. Mazda website shows an offer of a 6-speed manual! (drool of interest) but only with FWD selected...and with the 2-liter.
0-60: supposedly a bit over 9 seconds and I really felt that to be the case. Getting up to 60 from a standstill to merge into highway speed traffic from a dead-stop Buffalo designed garbage t-intersection was rapid and about as fast as you would want with little kids in the seats. I did not feel in any way drastically underpowered during that event - only a little bit. I'm sure at altitude of the Denver area I'm used to I would notice the 10% loss in power.
drive: front. 4wd available but I wouldn't get that without springing for the larger more awesome 2.5 and that would be a nice combination but that starts at $26,215.
mpg: I measured the mileage at exactly 26 mpg in mixed town driving. I'm sure over 30mpg is realistic. This is a good car for the budget.
ThatJeepGuy
> Grindintosecond
06/01/2014 at 13:23 |
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I really didn't like the Skyactiv engine, personally. Fairly sprightly, and cornered well, but I remember the noise of the engine really bothering me. I thought the whole car was just a touch too small to be practical, but I feel that way with most mini-CUVs. It's basically an eco-box with a higher roof line and optional AWD.
Minor review criticism: You give the starting price, but no "as tested" price to compare to. The closest "as tested" price I could come up with was $25,000 dead on. But that's a 2015, and the options are different. For example, you can't get the blind spot system or back up camera on a base model with the smaller engine any more. But for that $25k, you can get one model up with the larger engine and all those options anyways. Win? Well... kinda.
The Jeep Cherokee starts at $22k, is a more usable space, a bit larger, quieter, nicer riding, and newer tech.
Granted, the Cherokee is what some may call fugly, and obviously the trim levels don't include exactly the same options, but I know what my choice would be, personally. Not that I have any bias of course...
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Grindintosecond
> ThatJeepGuy
06/01/2014 at 13:39 |
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Good point on the price. This one had 6200 miles on the clock so its features might be different from the ones on the 2015 model site. I suppose I wrongly assumed the base model was the rental car. For $25,000 I still think it's a good deal. The engine note is just different with direct injection engines. This sounds a bit noisier and nothing like the regular injection 2.3 in my Mazda3.
P5guy now GTIguy
> Grindintosecond
08/07/2014 at 20:33 |
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you most likely had the 2.5 which is standard on the touring trim level for 2014. I say this because you can't get a touchscreen radio or back up cam or fog lights on the sport trim which comes with the 2.0 liter.