Alternative to Mazda5?

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mazda
Wondering what cars are out there as an alternative to MZ5?
It doesn't have to have a 3rd door seat. There are also EVs and hybrids!
Not so much like these huge minivans like Sienna. 5 seater is fine with decent cargo space.
 
The CX-9 is the only other Mazda that has 3 row seating. But it's a much larger vehicle.

Trust me, I've looked, the MZ5 is an extremely unusual (and Awesome!) vehicle and to my knowledge is the only car in it's class that has a third row. When ours is finished in the next 10 years, I'm going to miss it, big time. I love ours so very much, that if the engine fails at 300,000 miles, I'll more likely than not simply replace it and keep riding.
 
I agree, nothing else in the size class comes with 3rd row seating. We were devastated when our was totaled out in an accident.

CX-5 would probably be the next best thing, or maybe even CX-30. But, you're missing out on the space efficiency of the Mazda5. Ford Transit Connect would be the closest alternate vehicle, but the build quality is terrible, since they are designed primarily to be a work van.
 
Wondering what cars are out there as an alternative to MZ5?
It doesn't have to have a 3rd door seat. There are also EVs and hybrids!
Not so much like these huge minivans like Sienna. 5 seater is fine with decent cargo space.
Pretty much every automobile fit this criteria.

You'll need to research to find your own answer. Asking in ___ car forum is not a good idea unless you are already leaning towards something and looking for confirmation.
 
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I agree, nothing else in the size class comes with 3rd row seating. We were devastated when our was totaled out in an accident.

CX-5 would probably be the next best thing, or maybe even CX-30. But, you're missing out on the space efficiency of the Mazda5. Ford Transit Connect would be the closest alternate vehicle, but the build quality is terrible, since they are designed primarily to be a work van.
Yeah indeed - this MZ5 is a unicorn but not in the heart of everyone in the US that they stopped bringing it here - sad:(

How well it hold in an accident?

- my 3rd gen Acura Integra was hit with illegal merge in a suburban rd. Car hit the curb and there was a subframe damage (rear). Driver had whiplash and didn't remember what happened. Flat front tire.
- to its credit, perhaps being a car it did not topple
- the other car was Lexus RX350 - had side of the rear bumper damage and a light lens were broken - minor damage (she now claims she was rear ended when the damage on my car is on the driver side fender)
- so wondering what car is best to drive city? Lexus SUV?
- for some reasons Lexus SUVs feels stronger compared to Mazda's - IDK why - just a thought in my mind!

Incidentally I was on freeway returning home on a different car and was on cruise control. All of sudden a car made a merge that I though it hit me - I bent over to the front and could not react - then I reazlied my car is on cruise and the other car went without hitting me. Maybe people forgot driving having stayed at home for the pandemic.
 
Yeah indeed - this MZ5 is a unicorn but not in the heart of everyone in the US that they stopped bringing it here

In the entire run of the MZ5 in America, they only sold about 120,000 cars. That's not 120,000 in a year, that's for all years combined, across both generations. And yeah, that absolutely sucks.
 
The CX-9 is the only other Mazda that has 3 row seating. But it's a much larger vehicle.

Trust me, I've looked, the MZ5 is an extremely unusual (and Awesome!) vehicle and to my knowledge is the only car in it's class that has a third row. When ours is finished in the next 10 years, I'm going to miss it, big time. I love ours so very much, that if the engine fails at 300,000 miles, I'll more likely than not simply replace it and keep riding.
Hey there,
My family currently has one running *knock on wood* that has 287k miles. Still runs great.
I am curious to see if there is anyone else with that high of miles on a Mazda 5 in the world.
Our model is a 2012 base model in black
 
Hey there,
My family currently has one running *knock on wood* that has 287k miles. Still runs great.
I am curious to see if there is anyone else with that high of miles on a Mazda 5 in the world.
Our model is a 2012 base model in black
How did u maintain? Mine is 2013 Sport.
- I did the Tranny flush when I bought it with 88k nearly 5yrs ago - now 104k. What should be the next service and when - drain & fill after 7 yrs?
- Changed the Coolant around 100k with Mazda OEM - when is the next one?
- Spark plug?
- Changed power steering fluid too - how often?
- Brake fluid flush done - how often?
- Anything else?
 
How did u maintain? Mine is 2013 Sport.
- I did the Tranny flush when I bought it with 88k nearly 5yrs ago - now 104k. What should be the next service and when - drain & fill after 7 yrs?
- Changed the Coolant around 100k with Mazda OEM - when is the next one?
- Spark plug?
- Changed power steering fluid too - how often?
- Brake fluid flush done - how often?
- Anything else?

Funny enough, I don't recall this car *ever* getting a transmission fluid change. The dealership never recommended it, and the car still runs *knock on wood*.
The sparkplugs are actually ORIGINAL too, after 287k miles. Little loss of power, but the engine still runs like a champ. I would say that the engine only has a "putting noise", but for a long time, our nickname for the car (nicknamed 24k miles) was "putt-putt" because it had a 4-cylinder with only 150k miles.

Coolant has definitely been changed around every 50k miles. The power steering fluid changed probably around 130k.
Brake fluid flushes were done once every two years because brake usage was high.

I think what has helped this car immensely, is that 95% of the time, service was done at a Mazda dealership, with Mazda fluids.

Every other maintenance was suspension/ball joints etc, because of Rhode Island roads.

Over the past decade or so of ownership, (bought around April 2013 in Florida, and then has spent all of its life in salt-born Rhode Island since 2014), the car has only had two major pitfalls. Once, my brother got into an accident with it, a decent-sized accident but not bad, and busted the coolant lines and headlight housing. That caused minute electrical problems with the front left headlight that persisted for a couple of years but was corrected.
The other event (that was kind of bad) was a severe coolant line failure out of nowhere, at 240k miles, a failure of a washer or clip of some sort. I think that caused a little overheating.
The engine bay also has mice damage from field mice, (ate the sound-dampening fluff), road rash, and acorn divots on the roof.

The driver's side rear door no longer *locks* back into the slot when pulled back, due to corrosion of the little metal piece.

Everyone always sees the car and thinks it only has less than 100k miles, because we do take care of it, but potholes and corrosion have done their best at damaging the borders of the rim, because many are incredibly deep.

If you live in a salty area, the transmission shifter cable will absolutely go out on you, this has happened to us around 4 times and makes you think that the transmission is failing, but in reality, the engineers left the cable incredibly exposed and it gets worn out every 2-3 years.

*conclusion because this is a long reply*
I would say that a large reason this car has lasted so long with **very** harsh roads, is due to something you may know, called engine cycles. For the longest time, it has been our only car, so the engine rarely cools down back to cold. The engine is also driven to 2,500rpm, and there are no carbon deposits inside at all. Inside the actual engine looks brand new. Tranny fluid is pretty good for being old and has no metallic flakes.

If we had to do own it all over again we would wish that we had done undercoating sealant and applied paint protection film to the hood and roof because those are the only signs of road rash in New England, the trucks drop granite rocks that scratch the paint incredibly deep.
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An interesting thing about the Mazda 5, is that the second generation uses the 2.5L MZR L5-VEl4 engine (the first generation Mazda 5 had 2.3l 4-cylinder engine that also found its way into Mazda's B series pickup trucks and Ford Rangers)

The engine in the second-gen has high heat tolerance and reduced friction, and Ford actually took the engine and developed an Atkinson cycle variant for their Ford Maverick pickup trucks.

Showing that for two generations of the Mazda 5, Ford thought it would work for a light-duty pickup truck, putting the same engine in a small minivan for passengers is probably a little light duty for it. However, both engines had a manufacturer-expected lifespan of 217k miles. So, our car is about 70k over its expected death date.

I would say that to best keep the car running for a long time is to use Mazda genuine oil (or a Castrol High Mileage variant because they use that sometimes when their genuine oil is not around), but I say to use Mazda genuine because I find that no matter what car you have, the manufacturer will typically design the oil for usage in engines for their specific cars, and in this case, most likely it's viscosity. I know that if Mazda genuine (a synthetic oil) is rated at OW-20 it's still OW-20, but I feel that Mazda changes it a bit.
 
Key take aways are:
- use OEM engine oil
- Flush brake fluid (for your location, yes 2yrs, I am in West coast).
- Keep the engine warm all the time (its impossible - its cools off while I am at work for 8hrs - we might do 3k in a year)

* My tranny fluid was blackish - dealer flushed it twice to get the color right. Plan on taking it to them for drain and fill but unsure when.
* Coolant is no prob

** Mobile 1 vs Mazda engine oil - is something new to me - need to think about it. Any one has a say?
 
Funny enough, I don't recall this car *ever* getting a transmission fluid change. The dealership never recommended it, and the car still runs *knock on wood*.
The sparkplugs are actually ORIGINAL too, after 287k miles. Little loss of power, but the engine still runs like a champ. I would say that the engine only has a "putting noise", but for a long time, our nickname for the car (nicknamed 24k miles) was "putt-putt" because it had a 4-cylinder with only 150k miles.

Coolant has definitely been changed around every 50k miles. The power steering fluid changed probably around 130k.
Brake fluid flushes were done once every two years because brake usage was high.

I think what has helped this car immensely, is that 95% of the time, service was done at a Mazda dealership, with Mazda fluids.

Every other maintenance was suspension/ball joints etc, because of Rhode Island roads.

Over the past decade or so of ownership, (bought around April 2013 in Florida, and then has spent all of its life in salt-born Rhode Island since 2014), the car has only had two major pitfalls. Once, my brother got into an accident with it, a decent-sized accident but not bad, and busted the coolant lines and headlight housing. That caused minute electrical problems with the front left headlight that persisted for a couple of years but was corrected.
The other event (that was kind of bad) was a severe coolant line failure out of nowhere, at 240k miles, a failure of a washer or clip of some sort. I think that caused a little overheating.
The engine bay also has mice damage from field mice, (ate the sound-dampening fluff), road rash, and acorn divots on the roof.

The driver's side rear door no longer *locks* back into the slot when pulled back, due to corrosion of the little metal piece.

Everyone always sees the car and thinks it only has less than 100k miles, because we do take care of it, but potholes and corrosion have done their best at damaging the borders of the rim, because many are incredibly deep.

If you live in a salty area, the transmission shifter cable will absolutely go out on you, this has happened to us around 4 times and makes you think that the transmission is failing, but in reality, the engineers left the cable incredibly exposed and it gets worn out every 2-3 years.

*conclusion because this is a long reply*
I would say that a large reason this car has lasted so long with **very** harsh roads, is due to something you may know, called engine cycles. For the longest time, it has been our only car, so the engine rarely cools down back to cold. The engine is also driven to 2,500rpm, and there are no carbon deposits inside at all. Inside the actual engine looks brand new. Tranny fluid is pretty good for being old and has no metallic flakes.

If we had to do own it all over again we would wish that we had done undercoating sealant and applied paint protection film to the hood and roof because those are the only signs of road rash in New England, the trucks drop granite rocks that scratch the paint incredibly deep.
=============================================================

An interesting thing about the Mazda 5, is that the second generation uses the 2.5L MZR L5-VEl4 engine (the first generation Mazda 5 had 2.3l 4-cylinder engine that also found its way into Mazda's B series pickup trucks and Ford Rangers)

The engine in the second-gen has high heat tolerance and reduced friction, and Ford actually took the engine and developed an Atkinson cycle variant for their Ford Maverick pickup trucks.

Showing that for two generations of the Mazda 5, Ford thought it would work for a light-duty pickup truck, putting the same engine in a small minivan for passengers is probably a little light duty for it. However, both engines had a manufacturer-expected lifespan of 217k miles. So, our car is about 70k over its expected death date.

I would say that to best keep the car running for a long time is to use Mazda genuine oil (or a Castrol High Mileage variant because they use that sometimes when their genuine oil is not around), but I say to use Mazda genuine because I find that no matter what car you have, the manufacturer will typically design the oil for usage in engines for their specific cars, and in this case, most likely it's viscosity. I know that if Mazda genuine (a synthetic oil) is rated at OW-20 it's still OW-20, but I feel that Mazda changes it a bit.
Are you still on original axles and wheel bearings? What year is the car and how many miles on ODO when you bought it?

Mileage is usually not an issue on most engines. Highway miles does minimal wear/tear since the trans stays in top gear, low rev, and constant air cooling. Age (year/time), heat, and frequent engine start/stop and short driving (before fluids get to ideal operating temp to effectively protect the components) does most of the wear and tear.
 
** Mobile 1 vs Mazda engine oil - is something new to me - need to think about it. Any one has a say?
Any oil that meets the specs laid out in the manual will work about the same. Theoretically there may be differences among oils that meet the spec, but the effects of those differences will be so minor that you'll never notice.

The only possible exception is if you're using the engine in ways Mazda didn't design for, and/or extending your oil change intervals longer than what Mazda recommends. In those cases, maybe – maybe – you could make a case for a different oil... IF that oil is targeted at your specific scenario (e.g. extended oil change intervals) AND actually well optimized for that purpose (vs. just being advertised as such).

I once made a spreadsheet to estimate how long an engine would have to last with a given oil for that oil to be worth the money. Obviously that depends on a lot of assumptions, but any plausible set of inputs always gave roughly the same conclusion: the cheapest good-quality oils that met the spec were the best options. For the more expensive options to be worth the price difference vs. the cheap options, they'd usually have to extend the life of the engine by 20%, 30%, 100%... Possible I guess, but highly unlikely. I've tried the same exercise with multiple engines and had the same results every time.

AFAIK, engine longevity mainly comes down to 4 things in roughly this order:

1. Design
2. Manufacturing
3. Running order (fuel quality, maintenance, etc.)
4. Usage

Lubrication is never an issue unless it's way out of spec for the application.

FWIW.
 
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I haven't been back to this forum for quite a while and read through many of the current threads, but this one caught my eye and I had to respond.

My '08 GT manual transmission currently has 590,000km on it. I've owned it since it was new. I have never touched the engine except for routine items (oil changes, belts, coolant), and I have not touched the clutch yet. Always starts. Doesn't burn any oil. It does a good mix of city driving where it doesn't get fully warmed up, and highway. The short gearing of the 5-spd does mean higher revs on the highway (around 3200RPM@110km/hr) and that made me think it might have a shorter life-span, but I guess I was wrong. The engine doesn't burn any oil. It doesn't have quite the zip it did when it was new, but it's not that tired either. I don't drive it very hard so maximum power is not an issue.

All I've done to maintain it is to religiously change the oil every 8000km. I've only used regular dinosaur oil, no synthetic stuff or high-mileage stuff. Every time something started to make a noise, I got it looked at and fixed. That's it. I've gone through a lot of normal wear items like brake pads, rotors, shocks, tires, oil filters, CV joints, etc..., but that is to be expected. These items are, however, a lot cheaper than buying a new vehicle.

It isn't the prettiest vehicle any more. There's quite a bit of stone damage on the leading edge of the hood, and there's quit a bit of rust around both rear wheel openings, but basically everything works like it did when it was new. The sliding doors don't like to catch any more when it's below freezing out, so I have to lean on the door when it's closing. The suspension rattles over bumps (the original sway bar bushings have got to be completely shot) but it drives straight as an arrow down the highway. It's my favorite vehicle for a long highway run. But that's it. I've taken care of it, and it has really taken care of me. Because of it's reliability and how practical it is, family members and friends have purchased used 5's in the '08-'10 range and have had awesome luck just as I have. It really is an awesome vehicle that I wish Mazda still produced.
 
So I've had some relevant experiences recently that allow me to chime in here. Aside from the kinds of passing experience with various vehicles that most of us have (friends, family, rideshares, etc.), I've had a CX-9 and a CX-50 as loaners for days/weeks at a time recently. We've used them 100% in place of the 5 while it was in the shop, so it's as close to a 1-to-1 comparison as it gets.

It'd be dishonest to say this any way but straight: Newer SUVs kick the crap out of the Mazda5 in basically every way that most car buyers care about. Better looks, inside and out. Better ride quality. More stability in cornering and over undulations in the road. More traction and cornering grip. Better acceleration. Nicer interiors. More features. Better tech. Less road noise. The list goes on.

Almost every aspect of the Mazda5 feels crude and primitive by comparison. The only major exception is the engine... which feels anemic by comparison. And modern people-haulers perform way, way better in crash tests than the 5 did.

For me, sadly, none of that is relevant. I almost wish it were, because it's nice to be in a good modern vehicle. However...

1. The Mazda5 is the only 3-row vehicle on the US market since the 1990s that was available with a manual transmission. That's a must-have for us, and that alone means there's no alternative.

2. Sliding doors. Having gone back-and-forth between the 5 and SUVs for the same duty, I'll take a sliding door over a hinged door any day – even when the sliding door is 11 years old and rickety and the hinged door is brand new.

3. I know a lot of people like riding around in vehicles that look more imposing and take up more space on the road than necessary. Fair enough. I hate it. I feel like a jerk driving vehicles like that on populated roads, I hate the lumbering feeling of them, and they're a PITA to maneuver and park in tight spaces. With the 5, I feel like I can drive anywhere, park anywhere, and not crap myself on every narrow 2-lane road. Any SUV with a comparable amount of usable interior volume to the 5 has a much bigger footprint. Any SUV with a comparable footprint is tiny on the inside compared to the 5. Many SUVs have bigger footprints AND less interior space. Only other minivans and some hatchbacks can match the 5's ratio of usable interior space to footprint size – but all other minivans are bigger in every dimension, and no hatchback has 3 rows of seats. A lot of our 5's miles are on city roads, and we really want 3 rows, so all of this matters.

4. IMO, the superior feeling of isolation in modern vehicles is a negative, not a positive. I could discuss this at length, but the bottom line is less physical fatigue but more mental fatigue and a higher rate of driver errors. This all tends to be worse in SUVs because of their greater footprint and height and worse visibility. It's terrifyingly easy to find yourself overstepping a lane line, misjudging a turn, nearly running someone over, or unintentionally approaching triple-digit speeds in a modern SUV. Those errors are much less likely in a 5 – especially the speed. You will never ever drive a 5 much faster than highway traffic unless you really mean it.

5. A lot of the 5's interior tech deficiencies can be solved by a good CarPlay/Android Auto head unit. We have a Kenwood DMX907S in each of our cars, and overall I like it much better than most modern infotainment systems. The touchscreen is way better and the interface requires a lot less digging through menus. And its position in the radio/HVAC area means you can reach it far more easily and it's not constantly shining light near the center of your vision when you want to focus on the road (big asset when driving at night).

6. Between the 5's relative compactness, non-turbocharged engine, manual transmission, and moderate weight, I find it incredibly easy to drive in traffic. I can control my speed easily because the powertrain responds quickly and intuitively. And the vehicle as a whole doesn't give me a false sense of security or distract me with fancy displays. In a big, heavy SUV with a torque-converter automatic and whizbang interior tech, I find myself leaning on the active cruise control because controlling speed through a laggy powertrain (especially if it's turbocharged) and placing such a huge vehicle on the road with poor visibility and feedback involves so much more mental workload.

I suspect half the reason modern driver safety nannies feel so necessary is that, without meaning to or even recognizing it when it happens, we keep buying cars that make driving harder. Less overtly painful, yes – but also less intuitive, more distracting, and more cognitively demanding. Automotive designers and engineers often do hero's work to mitigate those problems, but there's no substitute for getting the fundamentals right. For all its flaws – and there are many, especially compared to newer vehicles – the 5 is one of the last people haulers that bucks that trend, especially when equipped with 3 pedals and a stick. Hydraulic power steering, fun-econo-car chassis, NA powertrain, reasonably sized wheels and tires, little to no superfluous size or mass. Just what counts; no more, no less.

So, yeah – if you're looking at the Mazda5 the way you'd look at any other vehicle, there are plenty of alternatives, and it's incredibly easy to find one that makes the 5 seem like a tin can on wheels. On the other hand, if you came to the 5 for what makes it special, best to make peace with the idea of keeping it – potentially at significant cost – until your needs or tastes drastically change.
 
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4. IMO, the superior feeling of isolation in modern vehicles is a negative, not a positive. I could discuss this at length, but the bottom line is less physical fatigue but more mental fatigue. It tends to be worse in SUVs because of their greater footprint and height and worse visibility. It's terrifyingly easy to find yourself overstepping a lane line, misjudging a turn, nearly running someone over, or unintentionally approaching triple-digit speeds in a modern SUV. Those errors are much less likely in a 5 – especially the speed. You will never ever drive a 5 much faster than highway traffic unless you really mean it.

----

6. Between the 5's relative compactness, non-turbocharged engine, manual transmission, and moderate weight, I find it incredibly easy to drive in traffic. I can control my speed easily because the powertrain responds quickly and intuitively. And the vehicle as a whole doesn't give me a false sense of security or distract me with fancy displays. In a big, heavy SUV with a torque-converter automatic and whizbang interior tech, I find myself leaning on the active cruise control because controlling speed through a laggy powertrain (especially if it's turbocharged) and placing such a huge vehicle on the road with poor visibility and feedback involves so much more mental workload.

I suspect half the reason modern driver safety nannies feel so necessary is that, without meaning to or even recognizing it when it happens, we keep buying cars that make driving harder. Less overtly painful, yes – but also less intuitive, more distracting, and more cognitively demanding. Engineers do hero's work to overcome those problems, but there's no substitute for getting the fundamentals right. For all its flaws – and there are many, especially compared to newer vehicles – the 5 is one of the last people haulers that bucks that trend, especially when equipped with 3 pedals and a stick. Hydraulic power steering, fun-econo-car chassis, NA powertrain, reasonably sized wheels and tires, little to no superfluous size or mass. Just what counts; no more, no less.
Quick follow-up to this. My wife randomly approached me recently and was like, "so, driving the 5 a few times since driving those monstrosities [the loaner SUVs].... the 5 feels easier to drive somehow. Like, I'm less mentally tired than I was after driving the SUVs. Why is that?"

This is a person who, until recently, almost didn't care what cars we owned and sometimes rolled her eyes at the strength of my opinions. She went out of her way to tell me, unprompted, that she finds an 11 year-old, 165k-mile, stick-shift minivan less mentally tiring to drive than brand-new automatic SUVs with lots of safety nannies and far less NVH.

Food for thought, to put it mildly.
 
So I've had some relevant experiences recently that allow me to chime in here. Aside from the kinds of passing experience with various vehicles that most of us have (friends, family, rideshares, etc.), I've had a CX-9 and a CX-50 as loaners for days/weeks at a time recently. We've used them 100% in place of the 5 while it was in the shop, so it's as close to a 1-to-1 comparison as it gets.

It'd be dishonest to say this any way but straight: Newer SUVs kick the crap out of the Mazda5 in basically every way that most car buyers care about. Better looks, inside and out. Better ride quality. More stability in cornering and over undulations in the road. More traction and cornering grip. Better acceleration. Nicer interiors. More features. Better tech. Less road noise. The list goes on.

Almost every aspect of the Mazda5 feels crude and primitive by comparison. The only major exception is the engine... which feels anemic by comparison. And modern people-haulers perform way, way better in crash tests than the 5 did.

For me, sadly, none of that is relevant. I almost wish it were, because it's nice to be in a good modern vehicle. However...

1. The Mazda5 is the only 3-row vehicle on the US market since the 1990s that was available with a manual transmission. That's a must-have for us, and that alone means there's no alternative.

2. Sliding doors. Having gone back-and-forth between the 5 and SUVs for the same duty, I'll take a sliding door over a hinged door any day – even when the sliding door is 11 years old and rickety and the hinged door is brand new.

3. I know a lot of people like riding around in vehicles that look more imposing and take up more space on the road than necessary. Fair enough. I hate it. I feel like a jerk driving vehicles like that on populated roads, I hate the lumbering feeling of them, and they're a PITA to maneuver and park in tight spaces. With the 5, I feel like I can drive anywhere, park anywhere, and not crap myself on every narrow 2-lane road. Any SUV with a comparable amount of usable interior volume to the 5 has a much bigger footprint. Any SUV with a comparable footprint is tiny on the inside compared to the 5. Many SUVs have bigger footprints AND less interior space. Only other minivans and some hatchbacks can match the 5's ratio of usable interior space to footprint size – but all other minivans are bigger in every dimension, and no hatchback has 3 rows of seats. A lot of our 5's miles are on city roads, and we really want 3 rows, so all of this matters.

4. IMO, the superior feeling of isolation in modern vehicles is a negative, not a positive. I could discuss this at length, but the bottom line is less physical fatigue but more mental fatigue. It tends to be worse in SUVs because of their greater footprint and height and worse visibility. It's terrifyingly easy to find yourself overstepping a lane line, misjudging a turn, nearly running someone over, or unintentionally approaching triple-digit speeds in a modern SUV. Those errors are much less likely in a 5 – especially the speed. You will never ever drive a 5 much faster than highway traffic unless you really mean it.

5. A lot of the 5's interior tech deficiencies can be solved by a good CarPlay/Android Auto head unit. We have a Kenwood DMX907S in each of our cars, and overall I like it much better than most modern infotainment systems. The touchscreen is way better and the interface requires a lot less digging through menus. And its position in the radio/HVAC area means you can reach it far more easily and it's not constantly shining light near the center of your vision when you want to focus on the road (big asset when driving at night).

6. Between the 5's relative compactness, non-turbocharged engine, manual transmission, and moderate weight, I find it incredibly easy to drive in traffic. I can control my speed easily because the powertrain responds quickly and intuitively. And the vehicle as a whole doesn't give me a false sense of security or distract me with fancy displays. In a big, heavy SUV with a torque-converter automatic and whizbang interior tech, I find myself leaning on the active cruise control because controlling speed through a laggy powertrain (especially if it's turbocharged) and placing such a huge vehicle on the road with poor visibility and feedback involves so much more mental workload.

I suspect half the reason modern driver safety nannies feel so necessary is that, without meaning to or even recognizing it when it happens, we keep buying cars that make driving harder. Less overtly painful, yes – but also less intuitive, more distracting, and more cognitively demanding. Engineers do hero's work to overcome those problems, but there's no substitute for getting the fundamentals right. For all its flaws – and there are many, especially compared to newer vehicles – the 5 is one of the last people haulers that bucks that trend, especially when equipped with 3 pedals and a stick. Hydraulic power steering, fun-econo-car chassis, NA powertrain, reasonably sized wheels and tires, little to no superfluous size or mass. Just what counts; no more, no less.

So, yeah – if you're looking at the Mazda5 the way you'd look at any other vehicle, there are plenty of alternatives, and it's incredibly easy to find one that makes the 5 seem like a tin can on wheels. On the other hand, if you came to the 5 for what makes it special, best to make peace with the idea of keeping it – potentially at significant cost – until your needs or tastes drastically change.
Created an account just to reply to this incredible post.

Small backstory: wife and I had a baby, both had small cars, mine in particular are old, no a/c, heavily modified for autox and uncomfortable for children, and are on the hunt for a new family car.

We recently went on a trip to Scotland with my wife and 2 year old, and while there we rented a Vauxhall Zafira Tourer. A 3 row, manual transmission, fairly new gm product, that is basically a copy of the Mazda5 sans sliding doors and with a peppy little 1.6l turbo motor. I FELL IN LOVE. We took a 3 day trip with our two friends and their toddler, jammed luggage in the trunk and floor and had the best time ever. It felt like driving a small car on all the beautiful backroads of Scotland, yet I would look in the rear view to see 3 other adults and two kids in car seats and was blown away. Why do most Americans insist on owning larger and larger cars?! It’s so infuriating.

Anyways, since we got back, I have been obsessed with trying to find a Mazda5 for us. But most in my area are super rundown, or automatic. Also, my dream is to find one in that deep teal color, if anyone can tell me what years that was available in, that would be great! I saw one driving just the other day and am now set on the mz5 as our next vehicle.

Maybe we should just move to Europe for the mindset on efficient and useful vehicles alone.
 
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