Do you find the 5 under-powered?

MP5Alive said:
Been driving the 5 for around 2000 kms now and am quite happy with it. It's a great compromise of utility, performance, and economy.

I used to drive a 5-speed Protege5. Sure, it wasn't a speed demon, but the thrust-to-weight ratio is about right and with a quick downshift, there is more than enough power on tap.

My 4-speed auto Mazda5 however, will try to climb a hill at 1900RPM in 3rd gear? WTF?!? And it really struggles. If I'm not mistaken, 3rd gear in the 4AT is 1:1 (i.e. no mechanical advantage). Of course I can just floor the pedal to force a downshift but then the car screams as the RPMs go way up.

Is it just me or is the only way to get decent power out of the auto tranny is to floor the gas pedal? I find 2nd and 3rd gear a bit far apart. Why didn't they have a 5-spd auto? It's available on Mazda3's, right?


My guess that is auto tranny. I own Mazda Protege 2001 auto that has exact the same engine as your Protege 5 and it really struggles when I climb on a steep hill. May I ask why you chose auto after driving stick? We're considering Mazda 5 with manual though we don't have a real experience driving manual.
 
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PolarBear said:
May I ask why you chose auto after driving stick? We're considering Mazda 5 with manual though we don't have a real experience driving manual.
Get the 5spd Manual. Stick shift, while intimidating at first, is SO easy once you get the hang of it. Once you know it, you subconciously just shift when you're supposed to, you don't even have to physically 'think' about it. It gives you much more control of your car and it's flat out fun. It's also cheaper up front, saves a pinch on gas, and in many cases is cheaper to repair. If you're on the fence, then definately lean towards the manual. All that being said, if you will frequently drive in stop and go traffic such as a city or in rush hour, your left leg will get quite a workout on the clutch, so in that case an auto may be in your best interest.

I learned to drive on a stick, had stick for a few years, then had a few auto cars, now I'm sick of automatic... once you drive a stick it's hard to go back. That's all just my opinion, of course.
 
jandree22 said:
All that being said, if you will frequently drive in stop and go traffic such as a city or in rush hour, your left leg will get quite a workout on the clutch, so in that case an auto may be in your best interest.

The Mazda5 clutch is one of the lightest I've ever driven--it requires little to no effort to push down. It's lighter than my Protege's clutch, which does get driven in stop and go city trafffic in rush hour, and I don't have a problem with it.

My wife, who used to drive only automatics and really didn't care for stick shifts, is now a convert. She even wants to drive the Protege every chance she gets.

The trick is to find a stick shift 5. We have at least six dealers around Baltimore and they had ONE stick shift 5 between them. I used mazdausa.com and had a similar lack of success finding anything in southern PA and Delaware. I finally found a few in the Washington area. Is this experience typical of others?
 
doctorz said:
The trick is to find a stick shift 5. We have at least six dealers around Baltimore and they had ONE stick shift 5 between them. I used mazdausa.com and had a similar lack of success finding anything in southern PA and Delaware. I finally found a few in the Washington area. Is this experience typical of others?
I ordered my 5spd... granted, that was back in May and I still have a few weeks to wait :(

I don't understand it, Mazda could've easily offered automatics exclusively with this car, particularly in North America where 90% of cars on the road are automatics. But no... they (thankfully) decide to take a bold step and separate off the norm (of sliding door vehicles, anyways) and offer it. So why the heck don't the dealers carry it?! In the end, I guess it's because the dealers know, 90% of the cars on the road are automatics.
 
That's because the dealers, in their inFINITE wisDUMB, ASSume that nobody would want a 'stickshift minivan'.
 
jandree22 said:
So why the heck don't the dealers carry it?! In the end, I guess it's because the dealers know, 90% of the cars on the road are automatics.

Pus, there's a bit more profit in it. My understanding is that the 5 doesn't have a very big margin. It is actually the smallest profit cetner on the Madza lot.

Most dealers are not enthusiasts and only really worry about how many units they can move in a month. I've never even SEEN an 5 with a 5sp! My local dealer played it real safe...too safe, IMO. I wanted a 5sp but had to settle for the auto. I still shift THAT myself 75% of the time. Certainly needs the ratios of the 5sp... (drive)
 
Just out of curiousity, I checked the inventory at mazdausa.com. My experience is that it's actually pretty accurate to what dealers have on their lots. Hilo Mazda has three 5-speed Mazda5 Sport models on its lot right now, but no Tourings. The closest I could get to Hershey, PA was Hanover, where they have a couple of 5-speeds. As for Baltimore, there are two 5-speed Mazda5s out of 40 sitting on various dealer lots, both Sport models.

So I guess 5-speed 5s can be found, but you're hard pressed to find the color and trim that you want. It's even harder to find a Touring model in the 5-speed; they seem not to exist.
 
I just got back from a day trip to Whistler through the Sea-To-Sky highway with the car loaded with 4 adults and one child. The car performed FLAWLESSLY through twist after twist and every ascent and descent. The car is not under-powered by any means.

My beef is not with the engine, it's with the auto tranny. It loves to upshift quickly (almost seemingly to the point of "lugging") but will downshift when required. On the steeper uphill grades, it will downshift to third and this increase in RPM will usually make enough power to keep the car moving (Third and fourth gear in the 4AT have similar ratios to 4th and 5th in my Protege5's 5MT with the P5's 4th gear slightly overdriven). I didn't need to switch to manu-matic mode at all - just needed to step on the gas a bit more. I figured with the electronic throttle body, I won't need to worry about drowning the engine.

I chose the auto for the wife but I might look into getting a manual-trannied winter beater.
 
doctorz said:
Just out of curiousity, I checked the inventory at mazdausa.com. My experience is that it's actually pretty accurate to what dealers have on their lots. Hilo Mazda has three 5-speed Mazda5 Sport models on its lot right now, but no Tourings.
Wow...wonder if they listened to me?! It was one of my complaints. :D There were none when I bought mine...doesn't matter really. I wanted the Touring.
 
Just got back from a 1,000 km drive to Kelowna from Vancouver, and came back even more impressed with the 5. I actually didn't find the 5 that underpowered. Those from Vancouver will know the Coquihala highway going to Kelowna is a real killer on trannies.

With a load of two adults (My wife and I) and two kids (12 and 2.5) PLUS a week's worth of supplies and luggage, the 5 handled the hills with aplomb! Perhaps i found myself wanting a wee bit more power, but that is all subjective. As for safe passing on the highway, and going up hills, the 5 has more than adequate power. I agree with MP5alive's assessment that it would have been nicer to have a 5 or 6 speed tranny - I think I would have averaged better gas mileage (around 32 - 35 mpg) if the 5 did come with a 5 or 6 speed auto. Believe me, I was really pushing the 5 being on manual mode through the twisties, and downshifting quite often (and running around 5500 rpm every so often)

Other than that, no problems to report on the trip, other than to say that I sure had a blast with the 5, and came back home actaully not feeling tired from the long drive.

Too bad we only saw two other Mazda 5's through the entire trip!
 
i had little trouble finding 5spd mazda5's here in southern california. in fact, there were 3 USED Mazda5's w/ 5spds within 50 mi of me... the clutch is VERY light, compared to my STI...
 
Hi all new here and don't have a Mazda5, but I'm really starting to fall for them.

I got to take a Mazda5 for a test drive a few weeks ago. The dealer had to go, so I couldn't really dig into it. The one that I drove was an automatic and I've never really driven an auto-stick type transmission before. I found the car with 3 adult men to be sluggish trying to pull out onto the highway with traffic.

From others experiences do these drive better with the 5 speed?

Glenn |B)
 
I've found my 5 to be pretty ballsy (can i say that?). It does want to save gas often but i enjoy shifting to manual mode. I find myself being able to downshift to 3rd on the freeway to make the pass and wow is it fun. I know i can just step on the pedal and force the car to downshift by itself but the manual thing is too fun to not use :P
 
Kojack said:
I found that the motor has tons of pep....but second gear steals all the fun...

I don't know, second gear (MTX) is the best gear in the car. Pulls reall strong and long. Never feels over burdened (useless I shift too early)
 
Agreed about that second gear. Pretty simple, keep the engine around 4000rpm during accelerations and tell me about it after. lol. It's not a v6 and it's not turbocompressed. And it likes high revs. So when crusing in town let say from 60 to 80 km/h, i'm in 4th. I think this is the smooth gear. But you can get pretty quickly there only with the second.

I myself found the mazda pretty sluggish at first, but from my 1.8TJetta where I could go to 80km from 40km from the 4th (yay for turbos), it's a world of difference. If you have a shift stick, use it :).
 

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