I think an arm rest latch is being a bit hypercritical. Tired of going to the dealer...twice?
And why would you consider another Mazda then? The 5 is the flagship. If it's unreliable... (Arm rest latch?) ... You think the 6 will be better?
For the month of December I've been at the dealer for 3 weekends straight. First was that they wanted to do a headlight restore to see if that fixed my cloudy headlight issue. That didn't work, they ordered replacement headlights. Second weekend I was back there for headlight replacement. On a minor fail on my part, didn't notice the signal lights weren't working before leaving the dealership, so it was back to the dealership again for the third weekend. This is a dealer competence issue not really a Mazda issue, but I wouldn't have been there if I didn't need a headlight replacement.
The arm rest and the headlights are/were not the only issues I've had with my CX-5. I've already had the transmission replaced at 15k miles. While I don't get the hesitation/jerk going from Reverse to Drive anymore, every so often when passing , the car would downshift and a loud thud or bang would occur. I could not reproduce that issue on demand so I've not taken it back to the dealership for that.
I also had an issue where the infotainment screen blacked out after starting up the car and would not turn back on after turning the car off or on. While I didn't care that I couldn't use the NAV or audio, this meant I could not use the backup camera as well, which surprisingly annoyed me more than I expected. The solution for that was to let the car sit for over 30 minutes before turning it back on. Also could not reproduce this one but I'll be really annoyed if it happens again.
Then there's the subpar fuel mileage that I'm getting out of it which is somewhat a disappointment. I also have other nitpicks and wants that newer models have.
The CX-5 is the volume seller, but I would argue that the Mazda6 is the flagship car for Mazda, at least at this moment. Anyway, the reason I'm still considering getting another Mazda if I were to trade in our CX-5 is because I think the reliability issues of our CX-5 are isolated to our CX-5. Otherwise, everyone else here with a 2016 CX-5 will have the same problems. I also have a 2013 Speed3 which has been very reliable and my old 2010 Mazda3 has been reliable as well, so I think Mazdas in general are reliable. In addition to that, if you take away the reliability issues that I've had, I still rank the CX-5, Mazda6 and CX-9 at the top of their respective categories. Those cars are good looking, luxurious, well featured and affordable. Basically, I think getting another Mazda is still the best bang for the buck choice.
