planning to by a Mazda5 what year should I buy?

[fkong777]

buy a 2009 or 2006.
2009 is about $3-5K more than a 2006. similar mileage.
I read there is a lot of suspension and tire problems. will the 2009 MY fixed all that issues?

 

[Rockin03mp5]

the refresh of 2008 added a lot of nice things. i would go for the 2009 for sure. there is more to it though.

what model (sport/touring/grand touring)
a/t or manual

are we comparing the same trim on the 2 cars?

 

[SuperJETT]

2008+ have 5 speed autos, aux input, rear cooling vents, more armrests, more stuff. They also switched back to screw on oil filters in 2009 at some point from what I understand.

 

[fkong777]

95% of the Mazda5 on the market are Sports. and weird thing is that carfax report on a lot of them say they are rentals.
Have not seen any M5 out there with a manual tranny. I would get an auto anyways because of the stop & go traffic here in Los Angeles.

So 08/09 it is then. 5spd auto and more interior feature would be great.
I assume it gets about 25mpg? that would be great compare to what I have now. I drive about 25000 a year. my current car is killing me in gas and maintenance since it is a AWD SUV.

Do you find the power adequate? or am i going to be a sitting duck going up hill? I never tow anything.
is the car pretty tough? or do you find it fragile?

I will prob get RX8 wheels and Koni shocks w Tein s-tech springs. Prob a pioneer Avic build in nav later on.

 

[Rockin03mp5]

my 08 isnt going to win any races, but i do not find it slow. it is eager to downshift, and there is torque fairly early on. when i was driving around in the black hills, i found that it has some problems, but i solved that by manually shifting into the proper gear to hold speed on the hills.

you should get 23-28 mpg depending on how much city or stop and go you have to deal with.

around here, there arent as many rentals. but i could see around there.

 

[SuperJETT]

It has plenty of power for our family of 5 which is 500+ lbs of people. We haven't done a fully loaded trip yet, but I don't foresee any problems on hills.

 

[flcruising]

We went for the '08+ because of the rear a/c vents alone. Ours has plenty of power when loaded with 4 adults, 2 kids & 100lbs or more of groceries. Our family of 4 went on a 1500+ miles road trip last month with our Yakima Skybox cargo carrier and achieved 26.5mpg @ 75mpg average. The Yakima is 47lbs empty, so we had easily 125lbs on the roof that you'd have never known was there besides the wind noise. The SUV it replaced seated less people and was lucky to achieve 20mpg highway. We have no regrets purchasing this wonderful compact.