Mazda CX-5 | Brutally Honest Long Term OWNER Review

[Music] hey youtube this is ian from big rock moto and outdoors so what am i doing sitting in my wife's car today so i wasn't banished to the garage because i bought too many motorcycles but what i have for you today is a long-term ownership review of my wife and i's mazda cx-5 this is a 2017 cx-5 grand touring all-wheel drive now i know this is a motorcycle focused channel but occasionally i'm going to have car truck reviews rv reviews and other videos so if you're not interested in this content that's okay just wait till the next video in a few days if you're looking in the segment of compact crossover suvs this is probably on your list and if it's not on your list it definitely should be so we've owned this car for two and a half years and put around 20 000 miles on it so what we're going to do today is we're going to do a long term ownership review of this car we're going to talk about why we chose this over the competition we're going to take a look at the exterior and the interior what we like and what we don't like about those things we're going to have a section on the practicality and livability of this car things like miles per gallon cargo space things like that i'm going to talk about driving impressions then i'm going to get into some things that we don't like about it and then we're going to conclude by talking about would we buy this car again okay so let's start out by talking about why we chose this over the competition so we had had a 2006 toyota rav4 with the v6 prior to this car my wife had also owned a nissan altima before we moved up here to the mountains now my vehicle history is a lot more complex i've had everything from three or four different miatas to mustangs to trucks to other sedans and suvs so my background is a lot more varied now my wife and i both drive this car i drive it most of the time even though it's technically her car so we needed to replace the rav4 which was getting old and up in years and so i went out and i looked at all the cars in this category the cx-5 when it was redesigned in 2017 which was the time we were shopping stood out for a lot of different reasons this car had really excellent styling at least in our opinion it had sporty driving dynamics it seemed to be the classiest and sort of most elegant entry in this in this category it was just the perfect size for us we didn't want something too big like a highlander we also didn't want to something too small like a subcompact suv we needed something with all-wheel drive something that got decent fuel mileage something that we could take out to a nice dinner but something we could also use to drive in the snow and drive in the mountains and just do deal with our day-to-day lives so when we bought this car we didn't have kids since we did buy the car we've had a baby who's now four months old another reason that we chose this car is that i'm a big believer in mazda as a company i love the fact that they're a small independent car company and i just like the ethos of what they do they believe in sportiness they believe in driving dynamics and they still care about that in a time when most companies only care about you know selling the most number of units and giving the most cargo space and putting a cvt and everything basically making vanilla type cars and mazda doesn't do that so what are their competitors in this category so you know you can look this up online places like car and driver but really we were shopping this against similar competitors like the toyota rav4 is going to come to mind we had an older rav4 the honda crvs obviously a great entry here and one of the class leaders there's also other entries like the subaru foresters is really really popular especially in mountain towns like where we live you had things like the jeep cherokee you had the nissan rogue and you had a lot of other competitors but as i go through this video we'll talk about sort of why we chose this over those other cars when we looked at everything compared to this now obviously i was going into this with kind of a bias towards mazda but when i tried to be objective about it and look at it i found a lot of the other cars had gone to cvt transmissions which i don't really love the way cvts drive although i do admit they're getting much much better these days and some of them you can barely tell i like the styling of this car i liked the value that it presented again going back to the sporty driving that mazdas are known for and they and they still put into their cars even their suvs and overall this just seemed like really like the most upscale in this entire category but the price is really really competitive so we figured how could we go wrong with it exterior styling when we talk about this on a car it's extremely subjective it's really just about opinion now there are polarizing cars like i don't think any of you would say that the pontiac aztec was a good looking car and on the other end i don't think any of you would look at this and say oh that's a bad looking car so there are some examples we can pick from but overall we find that this car is very good looking very classy and elegant looking from just about any angle you look at it the proportions are right and it just seems to have an upscale feel it's not over styled with too many crazy lines we also love the color choices that were available and in the sole red crystal i'll put a better picture here because obviously the lighting isn't very good right now but we this car looks absolutely incredible in the sunlight and then changing light conditions and that's something that made it stood out and you know made it really a nice car for us i really like the dark finish of the wheels with the silver accents they even though they're dirty right now they really don't look dirty so that's kind of a nice thing over having polished bright wheels some things that i don't really love i don't like all of the sort of black colored unpainted plastics all over the car although i noticed that as a trend in today's car world also the grill up here on the front with this sort of 3d shape it looks really nice but it's a little bit hard to clean so that's something to keep in mind let's talk about the interior of this car the styling and the features so getting inside of this car you'd almost think you're getting into a luxury car when you look at the finishes the quality the choice of materials how things fit together the stitching the style of it you might think you're getting into an audi and that's a huge compliment i'm giving to mazda because if you got into some of their older cars they weren't really quite as good as this somewhere i think when they brought this car out in 2017 is when they took a huge leap forward in terms of interior refinement and quality and class and elegance honestly the interior is one of the big things that really sold us on getting this car now keep in mind that my wife is not like me with her money she's very conservative she's going to keep this car 5 10 15 years perhaps whereas i go through vehicles every couple years because i'm irresponsible and a bad husband and squandering her child's future so when i was shopping and helping her get this car i really wanted to get something that i knew we were going to be happy with and feel was a nice car for a long time even as new stuff came out and i think because this is so nice and so classy i think it will age well and i think we'll be happy with it into the future so some things to point out about the interior i mentioned the styling and the fit and finish is very very good the quality is very very good i like the controls how easy to use they are the manual shift shifter i really really like the buttons are very easy to figure out you've got manual climate control dials right here in this nice silver finish the heated seat buttons are right here no going into a computer to get to them the steering wheel is not too cluttered now the infotainment i'm not going to deep dive into this because other videos have covered it but the infotainment on this car is pretty lacking so in 2017 they did not come with android auto or apple carplay now i can upgrade this one to have that and the newer ones come with that so that's good i would just honestly just use the apple car player android auto and forget about the built-in features because it's really difficult to use i don't so much mine the control interface itself the dial in the buttons here they're fairly intuitive but the actual interface the software is really slow and clunky and just not very modern also the screen could be bigger let's talk about the seating for a second now you can see we got the parchment leather which i think is gorgeous and i think it's a huge a wonderful contrast to the dark exterior red color this is the car that they feature on the brochures and so i figured well we'll just buy that one because it looks really good the downside of having a really light colored leather like this is you better keep on top of your cleaning if you're kind of messy or if you have kids or any of the above you're going to really have to keep on top of cleaning this if you want it to stay looking nice now i'm ocd with my cars and our cars that we have so it's not a problem for me but something to keep in mind if if you're not too careful with your car if you're like that you probably for most people the black leather or something like a brown leather is probably going to be better although i still love a light color leather i think it's the best color in terms of room and practicality on the inside we'll talk more about that but the rear seat room is okay i'll put up a chart here compared to its competition and the cargo room is average it's not great but it's also not terrible some of the competitors have more room but again it's fine it's enough um this going back to the seating the lumbar support is really lacking on this car and the front seats have adjustable lumbar but they don't extend out far enough so they don't give you enough support so he has the adjustment but they just need to come out further to give you more lumbar for your lower back so that's something that they need to improve one quick change i did to it is i did put in husky floor mat liners i don't like having cloth floor mats i mean no matter where i live i like to have the carpet but especially living up here in the mountains where we have snow and ice and mud i really like to have these i can vacuum them out wipe them down and it looks looks new again so that's a nice thing let's talk about some of the practicality and the livability of this car so why don't we start with fuel mileage that's something that's on everyone's mind fuel mileage the epa rates this car at 23 city 29 highway 26 combined now that's for the 2017 model with the two and a half liter naturally aspirated engine for the all-wheel drive version the non-all-wheel drive gets a little bit better now we our experience with the fuel economy has been pretty much exactly on those epa numbers so we've seen as low as 23.24 for mostly driving around town and as high as 31 32 on the highway but more like the 29 that they quote so overall over the three years we've owned this we've averaged around 26 to 27 miles a gallon which is right at that combined rating so i guess epa mazda good job on figuring that out i mentioned the interior volume of the car again you have to keep in mind the class that that's in so when you look at the competitors the crv and the rav4 have a little bit more room than this but not a huge amount so you just have to go sit in all of them and see if that's a big difference for you we've been able to carry around our kit and our rear-facing car seat just fine do our costco runs as long as you don't get crazy with costco and it's perfectly it's perfectly acceptable their rear seat is comfortable for adults for kids whatever you might want to put back there and the cargo room is you know because that's why everyone buys suvs it's got this big opening and you can fit just whatever you need back here one thing about living with this car day to day that's really a grid positive this car is extremely quiet and refined out on the highway at 75 80 miles an hour you can barely hear anything from the outside mazda did a great job reducing nvh which is noise vibration harshness they have a lot of insulation under the car they have a lot of like rubber and sort of carpeted padding in the wheel wells uh the glass has really good insulation so when you're going down the highway what this means is that you really are sort of um in your own little capsule it's so quiet it's so relaxing to drive that we can drive this all day and not get tired the all-wheel drive system so we have a really steep driveway that gets covered in snow and ice i have managed of course to get it stuck but i would get stuck in any car even my truck with all-terrain tires on it we've switched to mitchell and cross climate tires which are a really awesome tire that maybe i'll cover another review to give me better traction on snow and ice and since switching to those i haven't gotten stuck the stock tires were terrible in snow the oem tires whatever they were i think they were some sort of a yokohama just a cheap oe type tire they really sucked and they had to be replaced within like the first year because we just couldn't go anywhere in the snow with it it wasn't the all-wheel drive system that was causing a problem it was the tires and that's usually the case this car uses regular gas which is nice not to have to get premium gas i mean i guess that's something more you find in turbocharged cars or higher end cars also i do my own oil changes and other maintenance and the car is pretty easy to work on to change oil there is some you know paneling you have to take off underneath which is pretty typical of any car but other than that nothing unusual and it's easy to work on in terms of reliability i mean again we've only had this car two and a half years it's still a pretty new car but nothing's gone wrong there's been no tsb's no recalls that i can remember and we have never had to take it back to the dealer for a single thing so since we bought it it's never been back to the dealer also on the livability front the adaptive cruise control works awesome in this car it will take you down to a stop and then get you going again but i think when you [Music] you do have to press a button i think to resume once it's come to a complete stop but adaptive cruise control if you haven't used it you really owe it to yourself to try it out on a modern car i will never go back to having a car without the adaptive cruise control and the fact that i could get that on this car was a huge selling point for me long drives bumper to bumper traffic stop and go like we have in california real life saver let's talk just briefly about the driving dynamics of this car so the car is not that powerful i'll put up the specs here i mean keep in mind it's a two and a half liter engine without any turbo it's their so-called skyactiv engine i'm skyactiv like other things you hear like ecoboost or blu-tec or whatever it is they're just meaningless marketing jargon completely meaningless junk basically all manufacturers are trying to engineer their engines to get good fuel economy they're all doing the same thing that makes sense so with the power figures in mind for what it is it's just adequate i would say i think if you loaded it up with a family and camping gear and went up into the mountains over you know high-speed roads in the mountains like going up interstate passes through colorado and you're trying to overtake traffic that's when you're going to feel like you know what i really could use another 30 or 40 horsepower here and more torque as well it makes the most of what it has the 6-speed transmission which i love having versus a cvt it shifts fast it's responsive it downshifts really quickly for you it holds its gears really well if you're going to buy a mazda cx-5 today i would definitely recommend to test drive the standard engine and then also test drive the turbo engine and see which one is going to meet your needs let's talk about the handling that's one of the reasons that we like to stick with mazda for our cars when we can and one of the reasons we chose the cx-5 over the rav4 and the crv and the others it's not that the other cars handle really badly by comparison this just handles better it feels connected to the road the steering has weight and feel and half to it it communicates more to the driver and it's just more fun a good example that i give you is if i'm driving up the mountain road that goes to our house which is like 25 miles up mountain road i can drive this car pretty hard for what it is and it doesn't feel too out of shape if i do that in a rav4 or crv or even something like a forester or the other cars which i've driven they don't feel nearly as good as this i'm not saying this is a sports car and the outright cornering grip may not be better than those other cars but it just feels better to drive aggressively i hope that makes some sense if you've driven mazda's you'll probably know what i'm talking about so while we do love this car i do have a small list of things that are sort of dislikes or i wish that mazda could do better these aren't huge things and they're not meant to say i don't like the car but just some things that you might want to watch out for the biggest annoyance for me in driving this car is the blind spot monitor the blind spot monitor is way too sensitive for me it beeps when a car is way far behind me in the other lane and i try to get over turn on the turn signal and the things beeping at me all the time now my wife loves it it's perfect for her driving style which is very conservative i'm not saying that i'm going cutting people off but it's just way too sensitive i like blind spot monitors i want to have it in my vehicle my truck has it but this thing is way too annoying and it beeps and you can't adjust the sensitivity so either make it less sensitive or give me a sensitivity adjustment would be a nice thing i mentioned the power so the power it's at times it could be more now if you're buying a newer one you have the option to get into turbo i would recommend driving both like i said for me i would definitely absolutely get the turbo it's just when we bought this they didn't offer the turbo so this was the only choice miles per gallon miles per gallon is okay i mentioned we're getting the epa estimates which is great that we're getting that but it's not class leading at all you trade off a little bit of miles per gallon going with a mazda over like a crv or a rav4 now you have some hybrid options in this class which are obviously going to get way better than that but that's kind of apples and oranges because those are hybrids although that is a choice you can make if you're willing to pay that premium if you compare this to the non-hybrid versions it still gets a few miles per gallon less than the crv of the rav4 for us it's a worthwhile price to pay for sort of just a sportier car a little bit classier car i mentioned the interior volume is a little bit on the small side it's not terrible but it could be a little bit larger we knew what we were buying going into it i knew the volumes of it it's slightly smaller than the rav4 especially in the cargo area that we had before but it's perfectly fine and it's not really a big issue just go test the car put your kids in it put your you know stuff in it and see if it's going to be big enough for you before you buy it i mentioned that we love the paint color and we absolutely do the sole red crystal is beautiful however one thing i would caution you if you're going to get the soul red crystal is touching up the paint is very difficult not just for a body shop which is still hard for them but especially if you're going to get touch-up paint and do it yourself with little scratches it doesn't match very well and it's really hard to blend in it's just a hard color to maintain scratches or any sort of damage you have is going to be difficult to fix if you're a car maintenance person you're going to wash it a lot wax it you know keep it really nice then you'll love it if you're not so attentive to your cars then you probably shouldn't get the sole red crystal or any of the dark colored cars really for that matter so would we buy this car again i think that's a two-part question would we if i could go back in time to 2017 would i buy this again yes without a doubt i think we made the right choice part two if i was buying a car in this class today compared to the competitors would i buy this again i think the answer to that is probably yes however i would definitely get the turbo engine and i would get whatever trim level would get me the cooled ventilated seats because that's a feature i like competition has gotten stiffer and now with the hybrid options in the market and the rav4 prime coming out with the electric range it would be a much harder decision but i think ultimately i do like that what mazda stands for as a company the styling of this car i love the interior and i love that it's easy to use but kind of elegant and luxurious at the same time when you consider the value of this car i think it's priced very very well for the features you get i think this is still a great car even against the current day competition so i hope this review was helpful for you guys out there i know i'm not really a car review channel but if you want to see future car reviews let me know down in the comments now if you own a cx-5 let me know what your experience has been do you like the car and would you buy it again let me know down here below in the comments if you like the video if you want to see future content of car reviews and other things please go ahead and hit the subscribe button please give me the thumbs up button on the video that really helps me out keep in mind i'm a non-sponsored channel i have no corporate interests or sponsors whatsoever i don't do amazon affiliates i don't do any of that stuff and i try to remain as objective and unbiased as i possibly can again i hope this was useful for you guys if you're considering the cx-5 or any car in this category let me know what kind of videos you want to see in the future thanks for your support we'll see you out on the road drive safe [Music] you

Channel: Big Rock Moto

Views: 1,112,320

Keywords: mazda cx-5 review, mazda cx5, mazda cx-5, crossover, compact crossover, mazda cx 5, 2017 mazda cx5, 2017 mazda cx-5, cx-5 grand touring, cx 5 grand touring awd, cx-5 awd, toyota rav4, honda crv, nissan rogue, subaru forester, kia sportage, gmc terrain, chevy equinox, jeep cherokee, hyundai tucson, volkswagen tiguan, cx-5 long term review, cx 5 long term review

Id: ck7LMnEtkbY

Length: 20min 12sec (1212 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020