As he was showing the front suspension and explaining the designs and parts, he said it had not fixed the hop. Later on, he mentioned that in some situations the car hops and at night, you can even see the lights going up and down when it happens. I was wondering if any of you have experienced this hop with their CX5.
Never heard of an issue with "hop" for the CX-5, nor experienced it.
Of course, as suggested earlier, a car with a shorter wheelbase will generally dip a bit more fore-and-aft whenever going over road imperfections, as compared to a car with a longer wheelbase. I purchased my CX-5 a couple years back knowing it wouldn't feel quite so, um, "plush" along those lines as compared to many other similar vehicles:
Wheelbase:
Bentley Bentayga LWB -- 125.0"
Audi Q7 (2017) -- 117.9"
Bentley Bentayga (2022) -- 117.9"
BMW X5 (2018) -- 115.5"
Mazda CX-9 (2021) -- 115.3"
Jeep Grand Cherokee (2021) -- 114.7"
Jaguar F-Pace (2021) -- 113.2"
Audi Q5 (2017) -- 110.5"
Kia Sportage (2023) -- 108.5"
Hyundai Tucson (2022) -- 108.5"
Subaru Legacy (2023) -- 108.3"
Mazda CX-5 (2021) -- 106.2"
Toyota RAV4 (2021) -- 105.9"
Subaru Forester (2022) -- 105.1"
Jeep Compass (2017) -- 103.7"
Volkswagen Tiguan (2016) -- 102.5"
Buick Encore (2021) -- 100.6"
In test-driving other competing vehicles when shopping for my CX-5, I test drove most of the cars on that list above.
In particular, I noticed the "short wheelbase" behaviors while doing test-drives on various of the smaller vehicles: most often with the Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4 and the (2016 vintage) VW Tiguan. I'd place the CX-5 into the same essential "shorter car" category, with respect to road manners (fore-and-aft). Which is one of the major selling points of the longer-wheelbase cars. Can't say whether the specific behavior described by others (or reviews) equates to the
same occasional thing, but longer-wheelbase cars do tend to smooth out such stuff.
Back in the 1980s I had a Subaru wagon, and it came with a 4WD (Hi/Lo) selector lever. When in 4WD Lo, it would occasionally "hop" while cornering more tightly than the car would smoothly allow. But then, these newfangled AT AWD systems have "smart" features built-in to not exhibit such things, instead adjusting control over a given corner in order to maximize grip ... avoiding, among other things, actual wheel hop during cornering. None of the cars I test-drove (nor the others on that list above) exhibited any such thing.
Haven't experienced any other sort of "hop" type behavior, in the CX-5.
If concerned about this sort of thing, definitely take a test-drive in similar-vintage Mazda CX-9 and CX-5 cars. A direct comparison of road manners will show things no video or written review ever will.
