The Mazda CX5 Review
Potentially brilliant?
- The new Mazda CX5 SUV
As a golfer you tend to look at all things in life differently. You tend to be more patient, more focused and more driven to succeed. However, as a golfer you also train yourself to look for the best in everything and scrutinise beyond what may always be necessary. So when we received the Mazda CX5 to review not too long ago, we found plenty we like and just enough that we didn’t.
The CX5 is a great looking SUV that has plenty of space and practicality for a young urban family. Not quite as large as the traditional SUVs we see on the roads nowadays, but the CX5 has a good ride height and great balance on the road, providing that element of safety that comes from owning a big SUV, with the sporty zip that one gets from having a little city hatch. The ride is extremely comfortable and the interior components you are offered are as good as we have seen in most R700,000 cars. Touch screen display, Bose Sound system and power adjustable seats are not something we have become accustomed to seeing in a car that costs less than R400,000. There is no doubting the fact that a lot of effort was put into the design of both the exterior and the interior of the CX5 and the Mazda pushes in a weight class far above its own in this regard. Although quite spacious inside, the CX5 would struggle to fit your entire four ball in to it, clubs and all, which is a real downer for a car that is built for space and comfort.
Where the CX5 falls short however is the delivery of its drive. The automatic gearbox is nothing short of horrible. Its timings were well off and we could comfortably say that it defines all that is bad about automatics. The saddest thing about that is the CX5 actually drives so nicely. In the version we had to test, you can switch from full automatic, to manual automatic which allows you to decide on the timing of the gear changes. Just like a child with ADD, when you take control and give it guidance, there is a superstar underneath. The engine delivers good power and pull, the CX5 nips in and out of traffic with the greatest of ease and you actually get an exhilaration that makes what you love about driving come through with every turn of the steering wheel and shift of the gears. The 2.0 litre engine delivers 114kW of power and up to 200Nm of torque and doesn’t even eat too much fuel either.
- The Cute little SUV from Mazda
Like a model on the runways of South African fashion week, the Mazda CX5 was great to look at. It had curves in all the right places; it had accessories to accentuate all the good things it had, but unfortunately it lacked that little something to make it really special. It lacked that spark that was needed to make it a super model. Intrinsically there is absolutely nothing wrong with the CX5, it is a really good car to drive, but just like most non-German automatics, get the manual version rather and you will consider it money well spent. The CX5 comes in three variants, all with 2.0 litre engines. The manual costs R314,700 and the two automatics costing R342,800 and R396,100 respectively.
A respectable par.