New to the site, my first post.
Have a 2017 2.2d gsx. This has seen our return to Mazda after a few decades. Also our first SUV. Basically my wife is the primary driver. We have a 5 year old daughter that's in a full child seat and wanted enough room for car seat and 4 adults for holiday time. Wife previously had a BMW 328i which was marginal with child seat and front seat passenger.
It took a while to choose the cx5. Was thinking more along the lines of last years BMW x3 with either 20D or 3.0 twin turbo. This became our price / quality benchmark . Colour was also important to wife with red being the first choice which lead us to notice Mazda's Crystal red. We checked out the 2016.5 cx5 but the interior and noticeable body roll compared to x3 didn't quite do it. However , the 2018 model had just hit the show room. The revamped interior hit the mark and the improvements in sound deadening and better drive made it a serious contender.
The dealer let us take out various combinations of spec and engines. I preferred the torque of the diesel and the wife preferred the ride on the 17s.. Briefly considered a cx-9 but was a bit tight garage wise and car parks are narrow in New Zealand.
Wifes final choice was a gsx 2.2d. Crystal red
So we've had it 7 months and have covered 10,000kms.The cx-5 has averaged 7.0 lhkm or 34 us mpg. ( we briefing won a small 1.4 car which only managed 6.3 so Mazda is fantastic in that regard)
Space, ran two car seats for a while, one rear facing, plenty of room upfront and to get 18 month and 5 y/o in and out of car. Rear seats at a good height to lift kids in and out of seats. Trunk space has been fine with holiday packing. More room than pervious BMW 328i
Driving, great to drive, soaks up our roads well (wife found 19s a bit firm on demo cars) and steering / cornering pose great for SUV (felt more nible than BMW X3). Performance wise its adequate (I have a BMW M3), Safe enough for overtaking and I believe the torque or midrange of the diesel is far better than petrol version. Ive driven about 3500kms on holiday trips.
Seems fine in light snow and wet grass on standard tyres.
Resale.... not sure but not a factor for us.
Infotainment , quite a good platform and easy to use. Pairs fine with our iPhones (6&X) no car play, but I'm not necessarily a fan of CP. Use a 32 gig USB stick with 50- 60 CDs which are in various codecs . Indexing of tracks each type car starts is annoying , can take a minute or two for it get through. Also has issues playing apple lossless format from time to time. No doubt future update will sort. Speaker wise ours has the two way fronts and single rear. Mid bass is boomy but rest of range is ok. Post warranty i'll replace speakers add sub and amps but still run factory head.
Anyway ... hopefully my rambling is of some use.