CX5 Air Conditioning and Hot Weather

I have seen alot of praise for the CX-5 AC here and even in auto publications as well.

I personally don't see it.

It is adequate, or slightly above, but certaintly not the best. I have actually always found my Mazdaspeed6 to cool pretty well. The CX-5 cools about on par with the MS6.
Maybe it is the Texas summer - everything seems substandard, because it gets so overwhelmingly hot. I think pickup trucks tend to cool well. Perhaps it has to do with a more limited amount of cabin space for the system to cool. Either way, my most recent service truck at my previous job, which was a 2010 m/y 3/4 ton Chevy, cooled exceedingly well.
 
IHeartGroceries said:
I have seen alot of praise for the CX-5 AC here and even in auto publications as well.

I personally don't see it.

It is adequate, or slightly above, but certaintly not the best. I have actually always found my Mazdaspeed6 to cool pretty well. The CX-5 cools about on par with the MS6.
Maybe it is the Texas summer - everything seems substandard, because it gets so overwhelmingly hot. I think pickup trucks tend to cool well. Perhaps it has to do with a more limited amount of cabin space for the system to cool. Either way, my most recent service truck at my previous job, which was a 2010 m/y 3/4 ton Chevy, cooled exceedingly well.
Click to expand...

There is nothing like the AC on Chevy or Ford trucks. It is like they are built for the hot conditions out to the west....
 
The CX5 seems to cool well for an import. Typically we found that the American cars (or at least GM ones) had much stronger AC.

When we were test driving cars the GMC and the Buick cooled super fast and could be turned down to one or two on the fan speed pretty quickly and still maintain a comfortable temperature at that setting even when it was 95+ outside.

We drove a Regal and an Accord on the same day and both cars had been sitting in the sun all day. The Accord took forever to cool down and the Regal was getting comfortable by the time we got off the lot.

Our CX5 cools better than our Mazda3 and our P5 always seemed to struggle. Sadly though a year before we replaced the P5 I got an AC Manifold gauge set and was able to add a bit more R134 to it and then the AC worked noticeably better. Still not fantastic but better. Since it had cooled the same from new I hadn't thought that it would be low (and the car we replaced didn't have any AC). Haven't tried it on the Mazda3.

My Tacoma cooled quite well but it was small and I think it was partially the old style engine driven fan on the front of the engine pulled more air past the condenser at lower speeds. The Mazdas have always done better once moving faster. Getting in a hot car and then creeping along in traffic they struggle more.

All that being said the CX5 did keep up decently when we hit 108 last week and it is somewhat humid here but that was on the freeway. My only gripe is the positioning of the vents. When it is really hot I like to aim the center vent right at me. However if I have my hand on the steering wheel in the 3:00 position the vent blasts at it rather than me. The side vents lean back and towards the outside of the vehicle so when I adjust the louvers forward and in it seems to restrict the flow somewhat. If I'm aiming the side vents more at me to cool down from being out in the heat I can hear them restricting the airflow because the louvers have to be adjusted so far over.
The vent layout in our Mazda3 seems to be better as the air disperses more and although I feel the cold air blowing it doesn't so much hit a small area as just feels like a cool breeze coming from in front of me. The CX5 seems to have much more directional vents where they are either hitting me directly or not at all.
 
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Chas said:
There is nothing like the AC on Chevy or Ford trucks. It is like they are built for the hot conditions out to the west....
Click to expand...
Our 2010 Ford F-150 has trouble keeping us cool enough even when it's only 80F out. It's so bad we took it to the dealer but they said the A/C was fully charged and they all work that way. Our 2000 Volvo is has awesome cooling power that comes on quickly. The best I've ever experienced (although it is helped by a special infra-red reflecting windscreen that came with it's "summer package" option). The CX-5 is almost as good but it doesn't have the special IR reflect windscreen.
 
MikeM. said:
Our 2010 Ford F-150 has trouble keeping us cool enough even when it's only 80F out. It's so bad we took it to the dealer but they said the A/C was fully charged and they all work that way. Our 2000 Volvo is has awesome cooling power that comes on quickly. The best I've ever experienced (although it is helped by a special infra-red reflecting windscreen that came with it's "summer package" option). The CX-5 is almost as good but it doesn't have the special IR reflect windscreen.
Click to expand...

That's odd.

I agree with Chas that it seems like pickups generally cool well, and particularly Ford and Chevy. Before the new Chevy service truck they gave me, I had a 2001 3/4 Ford, w/ the 7.3l oil burner. It cooled great, even after 330,000 miles.
We have a 1/2 ton Dodge Ram work truck here at the office. I think it is a 2010 model as well. It cools well.

There must be some merrit to domestic makes having better AC than foreign, or at least Japanese.
 
My 2004 Mercury/Ford takes about 10 minutes to cool, this after the whole system failed in 2010 and I needed to get a whole new A/C system installed. All OEM. My old Acura TL was decent, the 2006 Altima was great and closest to the 2013 CX-5 and the 2014 6 so far. 2009 Civic was bad although if I go back further my 88 and 97 Camaro's A/C were great as well.
 
Haha! ^ Ouch!

We had a 2002 Altima which featured a pretty average AC. Wasn't terrible by any means. The problem with it was, it would need HVAC repair work regularly. That stuff's not inexpensive to repair either...
The AC wasn't working when we traded it on the CX-5. XD

I have been driving my AC-less 72' Chevy since my Speed6 has been out of service. I am really coming to appreciate (and sorely miss) AC.
 
No prob with my cx5 , cools very well and fast, 4 days of temps around 34 deg c, 93 f and I'm really impressed with it.
 
I may be wrong, but I believe that the sport versions do not have rear vents. I have no clue if the fan our output varies, but I don't believe there is any air getting pumped directly to the rear part of the cabin. Not saying it has a negative impact, but it might be a consideration.
 
babaoriley7 said:
I may be wrong, but I believe that the sport versions do not have rear vents. I have no clue if the fan our output varies, but I don't believe there is any air getting pumped directly to the rear part of the cabin. Not saying it has a negative impact, but it might be a consideration.
Click to expand...

Sport, Touring, GT, none have rear vents in console.
 
Glad I stumbled upon this thread. Been watching the inventory at some of the dealerships and none have the color combo I'd like.

Black/sand or white/sand. Most have the Silver or Gray with black interior. Moving back to Texas, I am worried about the heat and stuff.
 
I have black cloth interior and our summers consists of 105 F - 116 F dry heat. Even now at 105 it takes a bit to cool off. Had to tint the windows 18 all around and that helped a bit. Once it gets going it cools off nice although I have to crank it up to 3 or higher. The black dash and steering don't help either I suppose.
 
lmbebo said:
Glad I stumbled upon this thread. Been watching the inventory at some of the dealerships and none have the color combo I'd like.

Black/sand or white/sand. Most have the Silver or Gray with black interior. Moving back to Texas, I am worried about the heat and stuff.
Click to expand...

If you can stand white, that color remains noticeably cooler than any other color in the heat. It does not get hot like Texas here, but when it is in the 90s, the white is cool or just barely warm to the touch, and other colors, even silver are warm or even (black) too hot to touch. This translates directly to interior heat as well.
 
Last weekend I made a quick journey to Tuscany (http://www.illaghetto.it/) and during the 1070km trip, outside temperature was always in a range between 30 and 34C.
For the first time in my life as a driver I had to set inside temperature at 21 letting the automatic air conditioning system doing its job.
In my past other cars, at those outside temperatures I always had to lower it at least at 18, often turning the blowers on full blast in order to reach a reasonable and comfortable inside temperature.
I'm very positively impressed by CX-5 AC performance, as by many other of its features.
 
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Just curious what temperature do you guys set when outside is 30 C (86F)+ or so? I set it to 21.5 and turned on the auto mode (I have the GT version) and I barely felt ok..Passenger at backseat kept complaining and fan speed had to up to 4.My mom's 2003 mazda 6 can handle the temperature even it's set to 24 and fan speed stay at 1...
 
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