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What You Learn Driving the two thousand seventeen Mazda CX-5

What You Learn Driving the two thousand seventeen Mazda CX-5

The CX-5 is the antidote to today’s abate compact crossovers.

We generally don’t pay too much attention to compact crossovers. That’s why, when you come here, you’re more likely to find an exhaustive report on every nine hundred eleven variant Porsche cranks out than a review of the Nissan Rogue. So, why are we talking about the Mazda CX-5?

It’s simple—Mazda builds cars for people like us, and we figure that some of our readers have kids and fucking partners who told them that, no, you can’t use your BMW E30 project car as a family hauler. And as much as we adore the Miata, Mazda sold around nine times as many CX-5s in the US last month.

The CX-5 isn’t fairly “all-new” for 2017, but it gets fresh bodywork and a fresh interior. Both are excellent. The CX-5 draws on the 2nd generation of Mazda’s “Kodo” design language. It looks far better than any of its direct competitors, and I even think it could stand proud next to a Mercedes-Benz GLC or a Jaguar F-Pace. It looks expensive, while most of its competitors look bland (Nissan Rogue), or fussy (Honda CR-V).

Inwards, there’s a distinct luxury-car vibe, with top-notch styling and superb build quality. Some of the materials used across reflect the CX-5’s $24,000 base price, but nothing feels cheap. I’m especially fond of the two-tier dashboard, with its pointed vents and woodgrain trim. White leather is always a risky choice, say, if you like to wear jeans, but that combined with the sunroof gave the well-optioned CX-5 I drove an open, airy feeling.

A lot of the switchgear—like the gear selector, infotainment system, and climate control knobs—are carried over from other, older Mazdas, but it’s all high-quality stuff. Mazda is also one of the few Japanese automakers that has actually figured out how to make an easy-to-use infotainment system. It’s similar to BMW’s iDrive our Audi’s MMI, managed either by the touchscreen on the dash or a dial in the center console.

Considering our loaded CX-5 Grand Touring AWD tester offers all this goodness for $34,000, it starts to make some luxury SUVs feel pointless. What does an Audi Q3 suggest that the CX-5 doesn’t?

On the budge, the CX-5 resumes to shine. You get the sense that Mazda engineers spent a lot of time making sure all of the CX-5’s controls were tuned just right. The CX-5 now gets Mazda’s G-Vectoring control, which shortly retards spark timing ever-so-slightly to increase the vertical fountain on the front tires during turn-in. We’ve got a big technical explainer on exactly how this works—it’s complicated, but fascinating.

Can you feel it working? It’s unlikely to turn the system off to see how the car reacts without it but overall, the CX-5 offers excellent treating for a crossover. The steering is acute and nicely weighted, making this 3655-lb all-wheel drive CX-5 feel lighter and smaller than it is in reality. Where other crossovers roll through corners and feel ponderous, the CX-5 stays admirably upright. This nice treating doesn’t come to the detriment of rail quality, either. It’s supple enough without feeling floaty.

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