I'd love an LX450 for an offroader...
"Space Wagon"
^^^
Interestingly NONE of my local dealers stock Mazda5. One dealer keeps them in the back away from everybody. In that sense, the Land Cruiser I looked at is the same.
They are both rare hens
I am really smitten with the new 6MT WRX 2015. Wish they didn't remove the manual trans from the Outback
I know new Oddy don't have tranny problems?Our Odyssey does everything better than our 5 except handling and fuel mileage. It's a lease, so the "glass transmission" doesn't bother me too much, but it's also why we didn't buy a used one. But with the hills I live in, the programming for economy and the VCM (variable cylinder management), there's a whole lotta stuff going on up there and it's kind of harsh sometimes. But the Chrysler with the Econ button was just as awful and disabling it was a pretty good drop in MPG.
The CVT + turbo isn't horrible. The NA sucks.
My Mazda repair manual came from Ebay and is an early possible pre-production copy. The introduction to the 5 calls it a "Dynamic Space Wagon"
A woman that I work with locked her keys inside her grand caravan recently. I gave her my key and told her to use my car to drive home and get her spare key. When she got back she could not stop talking about how nice the 5 was. With a family of 4 it works, although it does not compete with the Odyssey on long trips.
SUVs come in many different flavors. Car based unibody, minivan based unibody, body-on-frame truck based, etc. Makes sense the term CUV has now come out. A Land Cruiser is a whole different animal compared to a FWD CX5 for instance.
As said before the way the MZ5 drives is the seller for most. My wife called me as soon as she left the dealer for me to go over in the morning and buy it. She has never done that before in any vehicle she has test driven. This one put a smile on her face, I could hear it on the phone. If more people would have just test driven them they would have sold more.
My local dealer almost always had one in the showroom, and they got a lot of attention. From the few times I was there it seems a major selling issue was the lack of power sliders/hatch. They are convenient to those with little children and the worst thing is that it is already available in the vehicle in other markets. Super easy for Mazda to make available here.
Sadly for me my next vehicle looks to be a 6MT Subaru Forester. I drove the CX5 and like it's handling dynamics but limiting the manual to the stripper Sport model in only a few colors and FWD only killed it for me.
American's are much fatter than people in other countries. I imagine it was less a safety issue but more of a getting someone to actually fit in the middle seat / gain access to the third row more than anything
You should see all the obese diabetic children in my hospital...It would be for children or small adults of course. Karakuri seating still allows for access to the third row through the middle.
http://youtu.be/gJERtxGSQ9o
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