According to TrueDelta, the CX-5 has fairly good reliability.
http://www.truedelta.com/Mazda-CX-5/reliability-1093
11% of the 2015s going in for service had transmission-related problems, and 11% had engine related problems.
For the 2016s, 11% of those going in for service were for transmission related repairs, and 6% for engine related repairs.
There are no reported repairs for 2015 or 2016 RAV 4s. There appear to be only a few in TrueDelta's database, but for the 2014s, of those going in for service, engine related repairs were 9%; transmission related were 18%.
2015 CRVs going in for service report 28% engine related repairs, 17% transmission related repairs.
The reliability of the three cars for 2014 and 2015 are as follows. Each reports REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS IN THE DATABASE.
2015 CR-V: 11 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2015 CX-5: 7 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2015 RAV4: 0 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2014 CR-V: 7 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2014 CX-5: 24 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2014 RAV4: 10 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2013 CR-V: 18 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2013 CX-5: 16 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
2013 RAV4: 15 REPAIR TRIPS PER 100 CARS
The RAV4 is the clear winner over the 3 years, with the CR-V second, and the CX-5 last because of the problems with the 2014s. The 2013 and 2015 model years of the CX-5 were better than the CR-V, but not overall.
TrueDelta also calculates what it calls "Lemon odds" - percentage of cars requiring 3 or more repair visits per year, and "nada odds" - percentage of cars requiring zero repair visits per year.
I'll report them as CAR: LEMON ODDS; NADA ODDS.
2015 CR-V: 0% lemon, 87% nada
2015 CX-5: 0% lemon, 92% nada
2015 RAV4: no report
2014 CR-V: 0% lemon, 94% nada
2014 CX-5: 0% lemon, 78% nada
2014 RAV4: 3% lemon; 93% nada
2013 CR-V: 0% lemon, 86% nada
2013 CX-5: 0% lemon, 85% nada
2013 RAV4: 0% lemon; 88% nada
Again, you can see that all three are comparable, except the 2014 CX-5 which stands out as more trouble-prone.
I don't think anyone can "smell" a problem in the data . . . unless it's on the bottom of their shoe. The evidence is either there, or it isn't. In this case, I think it isn't. That doesn't mean there's no problem, and certainly the owners who've had to replace transmissions under warranty certainly had problems! But to say you can smell a problem here is trusting intuition, which is notoriously unreliable except in specific situations - deep experience with plenty of rapid feedback to allow learning from that experience.
Otherwise, intuition is a lot of BS, frankly. People use it to fool themselves into thinking they know something when they don't. Check it out in Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow".