My wife and I bought a CX-5 today! AMA

"boxrocket" (boxrocket) 10/24/2015 at 23:09 • Filed to: mazda, cx-5, new car

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2016, Blue Reflex Mica, Grand Touring AWD, with the Tech Package. Got a fairly good deal, and owner loyalty bonus. My wife and I got tired of shopping the used market, so we decided to pay the extra for a new one. Got them to throw in a few free accessories, but forgot that Remote Start wasn’t included, which isn’t a huge deal, but something to consider down the line as winter approaches. I’m personally thrilled my wife finally has come around to the idea of owning something that isn’t a sedan, and it’s roomier and easier to get in and out of than our Mazda6 sedans. We also have the luxury of selling her Mazda6 at a more leisurely pace rather than feel it needs to be gotten rid of ASAP.

It’s been a busy year for us, car-wise. I bought my 6 in April, sold the Volvo shortly after, bought another 6 as a backup car on Wednesday for a few hundred bucks (which, really, is kind of a steal), and then opted to buy the CX-5 today almost on a whim.

I’d post pictures but it’s dark and I like my anonymity, and the website photo shows fairly well.

Brickman > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:15

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That’s my favorite color for the CX-5 :D

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:17

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How y’all liking it so far?

Spaceball-Two > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:19

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I’m really interested in your experience with it because my wife really wants one of these in black. Our newborn requires something with more space.

JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder! > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:20

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We nearly bought one. Love how they look and drive.

Sadly we wanted awd and being in Florida they literally got 1 awd for every 35 fwd. So we could never get the one we wanted

Do you have those awesome wheels?

boxrocket > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 10/24/2015 at 23:22

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Love it! It’s our first non-used car, so it’s quite a treat. We've only driven it from the dealership to the house, as the entire process was fairly exhausting.

We went to CarMax a few times prior and tried damn near everything on the lot (except trucks, minivans, and sports cars) and the only - literally, only - vehicle she had a positive reaction to was the CX-5. We really liked the experience at CarMax and even transferred in a car, but trying to find one that is both a Grand Touring and a shade of blue we like (the old body style had a lovely almost candy-blue color we both love, and the current options are either this “Reflex Blue” which is almost a dead ringer for my first Mazda 626, or an almost-black “Crystal Blue”) is nearly impossible. So we went to the Mazda dealership next door and got a new one with only 3 miles on it, and for only a few thousand dollars more than the used ones we were looking at (if one includes the “MaxCare” extended warranty, which Doug DeMuro recommends).

Van Man, rocks the Man Van > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:23

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Congrats! Does it really drive as well as reviews say?

boxrocket > JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder! 10/24/2015 at 23:23

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Yep, it’s a dead ringer for the Mazda-sourced image. No roof rack (no need, looks awkward, adds wind noise and minimally lowers mileage), LED lighting all around, and the adaptive ones at that - which I particularly like. I want to put Xenons or LEDs in my Mazda6 now.

Wobbles the Mind > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:25

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Excellent! The CX-5 is a 10 in my book. You should send a picture of your fleet to Mazda. Caption it, “All we are missing is the shooting brake RX-7/9 *wink wink, nudge nudge*.”

boxrocket > Spaceball-Two 10/24/2015 at 23:27

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We’re very happy with it, and have been shopping for a few months, and it’s the only vehicle on the entire market we found that not only meets our basic needs, but exceeds our requirements for feel, fit, finish, options, and reliability. The gas mileage is a nice perk too.

My sister-in-law was shopping between a Mazda3 and an Impreza hatch a few months back, and I mentioned to try fitting my nephew’s car seat in the back and how easy it was on those, and she discovered that neither was roomy enough to fit two car seats, and were uncomfortable to bend over to get him in and out of the car.

One of my favorite clever touches is the fact that the rear seats fold flat at both the top of the seat (accessible from the rear row), and from the hatch from the side bulkhead-mounted levers, which mean they can drop from either position, to aid loading larger items from either position. While the rear hatch isn’t powered, it’s got a very light feel and has a grab handle for shorter users.

JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder! > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:27

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Great color choice. I think you have the amazing sound system too. Quite jealous

My dad’s V60 had those active xenon lights. It’s not fair how bright and white and clear they are. I’ve been trying so hard to get that look in my c30 but halogens can only do so much.

boxrocket > Brickman 10/24/2015 at 23:33

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Mine too! I secretly wanted that color all along once we agreed on a 2016, but I was willing to go for silver, Soul Red, or the darker blue. Black, white, gray, and the “titanium” (silver-brown) weren't even considered.

It seems like a near dead-ringer (IIRC) to my first Mazda, a 626, but the CX-5 has far superior paint quality. That might be nostalgia talking, though.

(not the actual car, of course)

fhrblig > boxrocket 10/24/2015 at 23:35

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Cool! I’m thinking that if the ol’ chain and balls wants to swap the Juke for a new car that I’ll aim him that direction. Anything you don’t like about it so far?

boxrocket > Wobbles the Mind 10/24/2015 at 23:38

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Ha! And the 6 wagon, too, of course. Though I’d be hard-pressed to not get a CX-5 for myself, in all honesty. It’s really a well-balanced package, and even throwing it at highway cloverleaves it grips about as hard as our 6 sedans do, though the seats feel narrower at the shoulder and as they feel flatter they don’t seem to hold us in place quite as well, perhaps to discourage such antics.

My driveway has three 6 sedans on it of varying years, and the one oddball crossover. Between my wife and I we’ve now acquired 6 Mazdas over our collective lifetimes, three of them this year alone!

I was disappointed the dealership didn’t have a MX-5 Miata to toy around in while waiting for the finance guys to take our cashier’s check. The salesguy was kinda cool though, as he knew about the Scion iA being a Mazda2 with a nosejob, and his business card has the Shanari concept on it from years ago.

boxrocket > fhrblig 10/24/2015 at 23:51

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There’s not much.

I personally wish that the Parchment (light tan) interior (which is really just the seats, armrests, and some trim on the doors and center stack) was available in this paint color, but I’ve gotten used to having a black interior from my daily 6 sedan and the Volvo before it. The moonroof helps keep the cabin from feeling like a mobile cave, as do the sizeable windows.

I also wish the sideview mirrors were positioned slightly more forward. They’re wonderfully large, and of a good size, but even with the front seats all the way back, there seems to be too much needed head movement to see their entire view, rather than being able to rely on peripheral vision. This might also be because the A-pillars aren’t absurdly huge so they just seem further back because you can see between the side of the mirror and the body.

The front seats feel narrow at the shoulder. Not uncomfortably so, and perhaps they even allow for better comfort and smaller seats (in a good way), but it feels a bit awkward if you’re as broad-shouldered as I am, especially when going a bit harder into a turn.

The rear hatch isn’t available with a power-open/close option, but it’s light enough and the button to open it is easy to find and use, so it’s not a huge letdown, but I expect slightly more for a car that’s over $30k. But realizing it’s essentially a tall 3 hatchback and there’s some compromises to be made mostly neutralizes the very slight indignation I have about it. My wife hadn’t even thought about that being an option, but I’m also a lot more familiar with cars than she is.

There’s possibly an argument to be made for more storage options in the cabin, but I wouldn’t have thought about it if my mom hadn’t pointed it out. There’s about the same amount as any of our other cars, so it’s not a deficit, but it could be a bit of a concern for some potential owners. We’re also fairly fastidious about not letting the cars get overly cluttered or carrying unneeded weight and junk, so it’s sort of a moot point. There’s more than enough space behind the rear seats for emergency supplies.

I think that’s about it. I had to search hard for these sorts of minor nitpick, but I try to be fair and candid about such things. No vehicle is perfect, but I’d say the CX-5 is far and away the best option in the segment, and easily preferable to most sedans below full-size. If all crossovers were this good, I could see how sedans as a whole might be the next station wagon and minivan, in terms of rapidly diminishing sales volumes.

boxrocket > Spaceball-Two 10/24/2015 at 23:59

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I forgot to mention in the second paragraph of the reply, my sister-in-law decided to get a CX-5 and loves it, and it’s well-suited to my two-year-old nephew. I’ll ask her what her experience has been over the last few months.

One of my coworkers has had one for a few months and schleps her dogs around in it and has been very happy with it. She was more excited than I was that we got one when I told her, actually. The first thing out of her mouth after “Congratulations!” was “Can we trade wheels?”

boxrocket > JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder! 10/25/2015 at 00:03

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The sound system sounds pretty good, even playing Bluetooth audio. The CenterPoint function (I think that’s what it was called) was particularly neat.

You might have better luck finding a C30/S40/V50 that came with the Bi-Xenon headlamps and doing a swap of the headlights, ballasts, and other connected bits. I was very close to putting Euro headlamps in my 760 Turbo because of the improved illumination over the USDM headlights.

shop-teacher > boxrocket 10/25/2015 at 00:04

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Nice buy! We got a CX-5 for my wife last year, and I love that little guy! It’s such a good compromise of ride and handling. Not huge, but big enough to haul our two little kids around. I wanted that electric blue they used to make, but it wasn’t available in 2015, so we went with Soul Red.

P5guy now GTIguy > boxrocket 10/25/2015 at 00:51

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My mom has a 2015 GT in blue reflex. It’s a great car, the 2016 update made it even better.

boxrocket > Van Man, rocks the Man Van 10/25/2015 at 02:29

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I would say so. Excellent turning radius, good grip (yay Yokohama tires!), well-tuned suspension. We don’t plan on doing anything much more off-road than grass and gravel until after it's well broken-in (so around 2019, haha), but its on-road manners are such that it feels well at home on pavement, in contrast to the Jeep Wagoneer and two Cherokees my parents had when I was growing up, which felt more at home on a rough dirt road than the highway.

PG; the scalpel wielder > boxrocket 10/25/2015 at 06:57

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glad you like it! dad got one in silver earlier this year. Also spent some time looking for a used one, but managed to haggle down a price on a new one for not much difference. Great car but a lot of the interior is familiar to anyone that’s been in a bimmer haha.

Dad even found it better then the turbo forester XT because he felt the CVT ruined that car, and the CX5 somehow manages to feel just as fast around town.

Enjoy!

BJ > boxrocket 10/25/2015 at 07:56

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Congrats! What is it you think you and your wife liked so much about it? What’s is it that made the difference?

Just curious what it has that might pique somebody’s interest enough that you’d go out and buy one on a whim, as you said.

BJ > BJ 10/25/2015 at 07:56

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Oh, and that colour looks nice, I’d love to see it in daylight.

boxrocket > BJ 10/25/2015 at 11:28

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We’d shopped several times at the CarMax (which happens to be next to the Mazda dealer), the Mazda dealership itself, and a lot of online shopping, and the Mazda was the sole vehicle my wife had a positive reaction to - very positive, in fact - on the entire CarMax lot on both visits. The whim was mostly a combination of impatience and frustration on my wife’s part, and knowing we were set on the CX-5 Grand Touring, so we decided that we may as well just buy a new one in the near-to-exact-specification we could get rather than hoping a used one would come available.

After getting in and out of a bunch of cars and evaluating our usage and current cars’ shortcomings , we determined we wanted a small crossover, or perhaps a C-Max Energi due to ride height and fuel usage. My wife’s greatest criteria were:
-visibility out of the vehicle (which made her eliminate the Tucson, Sportage, RAV4, and Escape),
-ergonomics (so anything GM was out, and while she liked the shifter location of the CR-V, the rest of it felt weird and unpleasant - on that note, though, I had her try the Toyota Venza, which is essentially a Camry with a taller body and more ground clearance, which she acknowledged had a few neat aspects but nothing largely appealing),
-size (despite owning nothing but midsize sedans she wanted a small SUV; even the Ford Edge and Jeep Grand Cherokee felt too large to her, and the CX-3, Juke, Renegade, and HR-V felt too small),
-options (heated seats, moon roof, Bluetooth, and AWD - after agreeing on a crossover - were must-haves).
Seating for four adults in road-trip length comfort was also a high priority, but roominess for car seats would bear greater weight than adult comfort, as we’re planning on kids in the near future.
We also wanted memory seats, but those apparently aren’t available in the CX-5, but my wife and I are of similar heights that it only takes a couple of small adjustments to switch between us, and apparently even fewer with the CX-5 than our 6 sedans.
Color was also a factor, but that was literally the last thing we decided on. She likes saturated tones, but not too dark, so the Crystal Blue was out, and the Soul Red just didn't pique her interest. I was in favor of the Parchment interior but after having my current and most-previous cars having a black interior, I acknowledged black was acceptable, and she said she was fine with it as the car has factory-tinted windows and a vent function on the moon roof for the hot summers here. Plus all the CX-5s have a light-tan headliner and pillars, minimizing the cave-like effect.

We decided early on that despite CarMax’s warranties and the availability of the Range Rover Evoque and Volvo XC60 within our $50-60K maximum budget, we wanted something less likely to have any mechanical or electrical issue, as our jobs don’t allow us much luxury in not being at work (we’re fairly critical in each of our departments at our respective jobs), and we use sick days only when actually sick. She glanced at the various German SUVs but was underwhelmed, and, to use her words, those come with an unavoidable “bitch factor”. If the F-PACE was available I’d have made sure we visited our local Jaguar/Land Rover dealership to try it out, along with the Discovery Sport, but she was so happy with the CX-5s we tried we opted to not bother or wait.

boxrocket > PG; the scalpel wielder 10/25/2015 at 11:31

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The interior is excellent, and improved in just the right places on the 2016 models.

I think what helps the car feel so quick is the light weight, an engine that has a good, wide powerband, and the gearing that works well with the engine. My 2003 Mazda 6 V6 feels slower than the CX-5, even though it is rated to have about 35 more horsepower.

BJ > boxrocket 10/25/2015 at 12:43

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Wow that was a detailed answer! I can tell you’re very excited about the purchase. :)

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > boxrocket 10/26/2015 at 09:59

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Good get! My wife’s ‘08 CX-9 already has 180k miles, so we’re hoping that the new CX-9 lands soon (and is awesome). Otherwise, we’ll be looking at a used MDX.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Spaceball-Two 10/26/2015 at 10:02

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Congrats on the little gearhead in training! Dadlopnik is the best -lopnik.

boxrocket > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 10/26/2015 at 14:03

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The sales manager at the dealership indicated they expect the CX-9 sound this time next year, since they’ve shown the Koeru concept to get a break on the final design. We'll see!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > boxrocket 10/26/2015 at 14:04

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Hopefully my wife’s car has no problem making it that far. It’s been a good one so far, and we’re in no real rush to replace it (as the kids will just destroy the next one, too - ha!).