Another off road test
- Thread starter gova
- Start date
I don't understand what the point of these off-road tests of a road going car are.
It actually did amazingly well for what it is and that it had highway tires.
I've been using mine on poorly maintained Forest Service roads. It rains a lot around here so the roads have large drainage swales every 50 yards or so and I couldn't make it through these in a car with typical ground clearance. The CX-5 is the perfect vehicle for this kind of duty.
A true off-roader has much more wheel articulation which translates into awful cornering on pavement. The CX-5 strikes the perfect balance for me - fun to drive on paved twisties and around urban corners but with enough capability to negotiate the tricky sections necessary to take me to some remote places.
Places like this:
The only thing going for it is the ride height, which is what helps most with light offroading. Otherwise it is very poor, this video proves what I haved experienced and that is the totally inept AWD system. The rear wheels are in a world of their own! But nobody bought their CX5 expecting it to go where a Landrover would go...did they?
The AWD is not "totally inept". It sounds like you expected it to be something it obviously wasn't designed to be.
One thing I've learned in my many years of off-roading in the Pacific Northwest of Washington State is that even dedicated, purpose built 4x4's can become incapacitated in surprisingly mild-looking situations with a driver who is inexperienced in off-road driving.
And, conversely, a vehicle not designed for off-roading can do surprising things in the hands of an experienced off-road driver. A vehicle like the CX-5, while not designed for off-roading, has a huge advantage in such situations over 2WD vehicles with less travel/clearance. In capable hands, the AWD allows it to ascend terrain that it could not as a FWD vehicle.
Getting stuck (or not) is much more about the driver than the vehicle.
The CX-5 excels, not at miles and miles of rugged off-road travel, but at travelling on miles and miles of relatively well-graded (but very rough) back-country roads and not getting turned back at the kind of obstacles encountered along the way that would stop lesser vehicles in their tracks.
Last edited:
Looks average to me in the group of compact crossovers.
However, the front of the vehicle is definitely sculpted for good fuel economy on highway driving and not for the best approach angle, which is perfectly fine for my needs. I only wish there was a 4 wheel drive lock button and perhaps a little smarter logic to transfer more power to the back in certain conditions. This is not unlike direct competitors - Subaru does not have lock button and other crossovers also sometime fail to send more power to the back.
However, the front of the vehicle is definitely sculpted for good fuel economy on highway driving and not for the best approach angle, which is perfectly fine for my needs. I only wish there was a 4 wheel drive lock button and perhaps a little smarter logic to transfer more power to the back in certain conditions. This is not unlike direct competitors - Subaru does not have lock button and other crossovers also sometime fail to send more power to the back.
I guess once people get hold of 4x4 non-sedan vehicle, they do want to take it to some sort of unpaved surface.
I think that CX-5 did very well indeed especially with those tires on.
Tough crowd! What were you expectations that you score CX-5 so low? Wrangler like 4x4?
I agree with Mike here, the driver skill is paramount in traversing both off road and on road conditions successfully. I also agree with others in that the CX5 is a very good compromise in regards to on road ride and handling vs off road ability. Let's face the facts too; the majority of drivers today never take their 4 x 4 vehicle off road. I take mine on rough dug up construction sites all the time where a vehicle with normal ride height would probably bottom out on the rough terrain. The CX5 strikes a nice balance of on road capability vs off road prowess.
After watching that video, I remembered two things:
1. I can't read Russian.
2. I can't understand spoken Russian.
I'm also not sure that he was driving an AWD version of the CX-5. I didn't see any rear wheel spin when he was "stuck", and other videos I've seen of the CX5 AWD usually shows a bit of spin on the rear.
One thing that the video did clearly demonstrate (which should be obvious) is that the front "chin" of the vehicle isn't good for off road use. (Of course, if I wanted a vehicle for anything other than extremely rare off road use, I wouldn't have bought something that's so much fun ON the road.)
1. I can't read Russian.
2. I can't understand spoken Russian.
I'm also not sure that he was driving an AWD version of the CX-5. I didn't see any rear wheel spin when he was "stuck", and other videos I've seen of the CX5 AWD usually shows a bit of spin on the rear.
One thing that the video did clearly demonstrate (which should be obvious) is that the front "chin" of the vehicle isn't good for off road use. (Of course, if I wanted a vehicle for anything other than extremely rare off road use, I wouldn't have bought something that's so much fun ON the road.)
I think (don't know Russian too) that the spinning front wheel and no spinning back wheel is demonstrating that the CX-5 sends only part of the torque to the back and only eventually manages to send enough such that the vehicle climbs out of the ditch. This is common for vehicles like this.
Chris_Top_Her
Contributor
- :
- San Antonio, Texas
- :
- '15 CX-5 Miata AWD
Obviously the CX-5 should be capable of this (start @ 8 mins)
While I don't think I'd ever need to put my car through THAT, it's nice to see that it handled everything except the steep incline. (I wonder how long it took to clean the mud out of the engine compartment.)
I find all of this humourous. If you are not going to drive through in these conditions, it is all irrelevant. I think of all the people who vehicles that could drive through this who live in southern CA, an area that doesn't even get snow.
My sister in law lives in L.A. and got a CRV with awd. It is her mom vehicle, will never see snow or dirt road yet hey, she had to have awd. My mom kept asking why I got my wife an awd suv and I had to tell her several times that we do get snow, sometimes a few feet of it. Why not ask sis in law why she had to have an awd CRV for driving in L.A?
My sister in law lives in L.A. and got a CRV with awd. It is her mom vehicle, will never see snow or dirt road yet hey, she had to have awd. My mom kept asking why I got my wife an awd suv and I had to tell her several times that we do get snow, sometimes a few feet of it. Why not ask sis in law why she had to have an awd CRV for driving in L.A?
L
L7D4R
I'm confused. Why would anyone buy a CX5 (even the AWD version) if they thought they'd ever be driving through a foot of mud with it? If you intend to "wheel" your CX5 in these conditions, I think you should have spent more time evaluating what it is you truly needed in a vehicle before you made your purchase. This car is not a mud romping, hill climbing off road 4x4 car... it just isn't. If one is looking for the most off road capable, AWD "car," I'd suggest looking at the Subarus.
AWD. Pause at 6:43
Even without invoking ridiculous off-road scenarios, AWD absolutely helps in a LOT of conditions where a 2WD would have difficulty. You are just as bad as your mom.
And you can see rear wheel spin at quite a few places, in particular at 9:25.
At a ski resort there is a very short road unpaved section, just before the parking lot which is on a small hill and it had a little bit of ice and mud in a pretty thin layer. I tried to climb it with a sedan I was driving. It is not really steep and only a few feet in length. The car could not climb it. Yeah, it had few years old all-season tires, but this is California and 98% of the time even this road section would be clear.
This is not off-road. But, I'd like to be able to climb it with an AWD vehicle. I don't think it is too much to ask.
I am sure other folks elsewhere have steep driveways which get covered in a thin layer of ice from time to time and/or that the driveway itself is not paved.
Here is a Subaru video which shows how they fare compared few years ago: http://youtu.be/JvTDD7RrhXc
Last edited:
Wow, a lot? Did you know that isn't a number?
Thanks for your dose of bandwidth wasting hyperbole.
Last edited:
This coming from the oil guy. The ironing is delicious.
