Mazda CX5 2022

Very short story time: I parked my Holden Commodore VF wagon in a suburban street and went into a friend’s house for dinner. I left the house and came back to a smashed car. Thankfully, neighbours had security cameras that recorded the entire ordeal and insurance is sorting it out. Oh, and they provided me with a Mazda CX5 while they repaired my car.

With that being said, welcome to my review of the used Hertz-supplied Mazda CX5 that smells like spilled coffee. Hertz, lift your steam cleaning game, son. All I see is stained cloth seats, dog fur and a dirty windscreen. And after a good clean, the next two things I saw were blind spots when doing head checks and an undersized infotainment screen that really should have been a touch screen.

As you can see, I’m starting off with a bang. Let’s rewind a little.

Overview

When looking at the CX5, one would see a relatively affordable and well-priced, easy to maintain vehicle. It has all the main features you need and, most importantly, it’s a reliable car. I was loaned the 2022 Maxx Sport model with around 45,000km on the odometer.

This model year, with this mileage, will set you back on average $35,000. The Maxx Sport offers a 4-Cylinder 2.5L naturally aspirated petrol engine that produces 140 kW and 252 Nm of torque that propels the front wheels, a 6-speed automatic transmission that will piss you off in the Coles carpark (more on this later), and enough space to keep you and two kids reasonably satisfied, until they hit 16 or so.

You’ll get all the nice-to-have safety tech as well; radar cruise control, brake assist, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning and so on. In my mind, you don’t buy a CX5 for these features. People looking to buy a CX5 predominantly consider this vehicle because of it its size.

Vehicle Size

Mazda categorises this car as a “Medium sized SUV”, which is bang-on. If you’re looking to seat 5 adults, please consider the CX8 or CX9. If you’ve bought a CX5 and your kids suddenly go through a growth spurt, please amputate their legs, or alternatively you can buy a CX8 or CX9. In other words, rear seating isn’t for tall people, unless the occupants in the front row are short and move their seats forward. For the most part, the average small family will be comfortable here.

The insurance company gave me this car because they deemed it to be equivalent in size to my VF Commodore Sportswagon. No, AAMI, it is not. Cabin and boot space is good enough for a small family, but for me, someone who carries a lot of engineering equipment and a few extras for outdoor activities, the CX5 finds its backseats folded down more often than the Commodore. However, that’s not a surprise. Not everyone needs to carry this much equipment, so I won’t penalise the CX5 for that. I’m sure you can squeeze in a pram and some outdoor equipment in the CX5 without any issues.

The only thing that’s bigger than the boot is the C-pillar. If it didn’t have blind spot monitors, you’d be in trouble. Head checks are almost useless with C-pillars like that.

Drivability and Handling

Where I will penalise it though is its handling and how the car feels.

The ride is harsher than what you would expect from a family SUV. You’ll notice the conditions of Victorias roads a bit more when driving this thing for more than an hour. The rear end in particular is a little too stiff.

It is possible that the engineers tuned the rear suspension with some sort of constant load applied (i.e., rear passengers, groceries, something mounted to the roof, etc.). I will admit that the engineering equipment I carry around isn’t heavy enough to prove this theory. I will also admit that I am being a little harsh on the car, I think I just miss my boat of a Commodore (insert heartbreak here).

The CX5 feels light on its feet. It’s quite zippy for a 1600kg SUV. Be careful though, steering is slightly delayed so if you’re trying to avoid a pothole that you notice at the last minute, you’re in for a surprise. The brakes are surprising too.

I can’t believe how much concentration it takes just to come to a complete stop smoothly. They’re strong brakes, don’t get me wrong, but they’re a little too touchy for a family car. The initial bite from the brake pedal will wake a sleeping child. Parents, you’ve been warned.

When sitting in the driver’s seat, you get confused about what Mazda had in mind when it came to the usage of this car. I thought it’d be more suited for city driving. However, I found that it was more comfortable and enjoyable on longer journeys.

The gear ratios help you punch your way off the line at the lights, but the downside to the gear ratios is that the car can feel quite jerky in stop-start scenarios. The gearbox never knows which gear to be in. You can almost hear the gearbox asking you “Should I be in first or second? I’ll just constantly shift between the two till you speed up or slow down”.

Here comes the Coles example I brought up earlier. 30 minutes into picking up the CX5, I was looking for a car space at Coles. This little scenario is what showed me that this car isn’t as refined as it could be. The car will push and pull you forwards and backwards as you lift and depress the accelerator. It could be one of those things that you become accustomed to, so I won’t go into it anymore. However, the push and pull was strong enough to capture my attention more than once. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought the CX5 was cammed… It’s not cammed though, it’s just a gearbox that doesn’t know which gear to be in. If it had the torque, it’d upshift to second and lug you around.

Infotainment System

After finally leaving Coles with about 2 days’ worth of groceries and a total bill that could be easily mistaken for a landline phone number, I loaded up the adequately sized boot and oh, crap, I forgot to setup Apple Carplay before I drove off.

Yeah, here’s where it gets fun. To use the touch screen, you need to be stationary. Yeah, that’s right. You need to pull over and come to a complete stop, otherwise you’re stuck using the centre dial, which is painful to use when using Apple Carplay.

I pulled over and followed the prompts on the screen; Stop the car, engine off, accessories on, phone connected via cable, confirm the codes on your phone are also displayed on the screen, done.

Thankfully, you only need to do that once (for each phone you wish to set up). Once you’re on the go and you want to open up Google Maps for example, you’ll need to use the centre dial to rotate through each selectable button until you can get to the App that you want to use. Mazda… why!? Apparently its all in the name of safety. However, if you think about it, this makes driving safely a little harder. Now I need to lock my eyes onto the screen for longer just to watch every selectable button get highlighted in order for me to select the ‘Open Google Maps’ button.

If it wasn’t for the great sound system and the 7.5L/100km average fuel economy, I’d struggle to recommend this car to anyone who wasn’t in need an SUV of this size. Speaking of fuel economy though, let me clarify that figure.

Engine Performance

During my time with the CX5, I just happened to be commuting to places that lacked freeway access and found myself in a lot of stop-start traffic. I honestly think this car can average less than 7L/100km if you can avoid stop-start scenarios. The engine is smooth and produces enough power to get you going, but it’s not designed to impress you in a straight line. That’s what the turbocharged model is for. The 2.5L 4-Cylinder does two things very well:

-       Gets you to where you’re going without using a lot of fuel; and

-       Gets you to where you’re going without experiencing catastrophic engine failure.

Nobody is surprised by those two things. If it were an Alfa Romeo, we’d all be in a state of shock, but for a Mazda? We can expect this from their petrol engines (I keep hearing that the 2.2L turbodiesel engine is unreliable. If you have experienced this, please get in touch).

The official fuel economy rating is roughly on par with what I’ve achieved in the real world, which is refreshing. Given the CX5 has a tare mass of roughly 1600kg, 140 kW is suitable for its mass. You won’t be mad at it, the everyday small family doesn’t really need any more than that. If you want an extra 30kW, reach into your pockets a little more and opt for the GT SP model (the minimum trim that comes with the 2.5L turbocharged 4 Cylinder).

Overall Thoughts

I keep asking myself who you’d have to be to buy this car. If you have a small family and want to commute to all sorts of places without spending a lot of money on fuel and maintenance and don’t have a lot of fussy people to drive around, the CX5 is a good choice.

It’ll do the job, and for most people, they won’t pick up on the annoyances that I found for at least a few months, and by then, they’ll be used to it.

The CX5 may be a good choice, but a better choice would be the Honda CR-V. If they determine my Commodore to be a write-off, you’ll be seeing me driving a CR-V.

If Mazda adds a full-time touch screen, softens the suspension and revises the gearing, it would be difficult to say no to this car, considering a used example will set you back well under $40,000.