Transmission clunk, thud and jolt

[CX-SV]

Nice job AZ wizard, your posting is tops. Keep it up to seal your status.

Btw- I don't see anybody being critical of Alafya's post on Toyotas.

 

[CX-SV]

New to the forum, but having similar issues since I picked mine up in May. You should call Mazda customer support, take it in for service. I'm on the long road you're starting, and the answer is going to be "works as designed". There is not/will not be a reflash for the 2013 -- the CX-5 "should" have a switchable eco/sport mode, but it doesn't, and we're all stuck in eco mode. The SkyActive Automatic is designed to maximize fuel economy, even if the gear doesn't make sense (e.g. 6th gear at 35MPH on a flat road). I've put it in manual mode and watched the instant MPG, and even if it's identical in 3rd/4th/5th/6th, the SkyActive will choose 6th.

I have another post on here that links to Edmunds forums, I think I was the only person in America shouting about this issue in June, nice to know I'm not crazy (Jeremy from TopGear praised the SkyActive transmission to death...I think it's gross). As I said in my other post, I spent at least 100 days in rental cars in 2011, I'm used to feeling out a ride (new or beaten), and the thing about the CX-5 is how unpredictable the transmission makes it. The engine has plenty of power, but downshifting three gears on the highway in a merge can be the difference between life and death. I drive about 80% in manual mode, and hate every minute of it.

Followup report from this poster please...

 

[MikeM.]

Very well stated ALafya and I am shocked that the know it all from "northern CA" hasn't berated your very accurate assessment of the Mazda vs. Toyota debate...if there really even is one.

The term "know it all" is generally applied to people who act like they know more than they do. It's not polite (or correct) to apply it to people who demonstrate they ARE actually more knowledgeable and who tend to apply that knowledge in a sensible manner.

I'll take a ubiquitious, boring, well engineered and smooth shifting RAV4 over a CX-5 anytime.

Hey, different strokes for different folks - that all good. But I'll take my well engineered and smooth shifting CX-5 over a boring RAV4 (and it doesn't matter one bit to me whether a car is ubiquitous or not).

I imagine your CX-5 had a defective part or perhaps the shift program in my more recent CX-5 has different software than in your earlier version because it has not exhibited any harsh shifts. Actually, it's very smooth shifting. If the CX-5 transmission has anything I could be critical of it's that, under certain conditions, it takes too much accelerator actuation to coax it to downshift from 6th to 4th. But once I was familiar with how it functioned I readily learned to press the pedal past halfway all at once to effect a downshift to 4th. For maximum acceleration, floor it. I find that works very well. It's not difficult to learn. If I want more control over exactly when the shift happens I put it in tiptronic shift mode (or whatever the manual mode is called).

I think the CX-5 is one of the best engineered cars on the road today and I can't imagine why you would imply it's less than well engineered.

 

[ReManG]

^^+1

An interesting article:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/20...f-the-crooked-car-buyer-part-one/#more-470611

 

[CX-SV]

New to the forum, but having similar issues since I picked mine up in May. You should call Mazda customer support, take it in for service. I'm on the long road you're starting, and the answer is going to be "works as designed". There is not/will not be a reflash for the 2013 -- the CX-5 "should" have a switchable eco/sport mode, but it doesn't, and we're all stuck in eco mode. The SkyActive Automatic is designed to maximize fuel economy, even if the gear doesn't make sense (e.g. 6th gear at 35MPH on a flat road). I've put it in manual mode and watched the instant MPG, and even if it's identical in 3rd/4th/5th/6th, the SkyActive will choose 6th.

I have another post on here that links to Edmunds forums, I think I was the only person in America shouting about this issue in June, nice to know I'm not crazy (Jeremy from TopGear praised the SkyActive transmission to death...I think it's gross). As I said in my other post, I spent at least 100 days in rental cars in 2011, I'm used to feeling out a ride (new or beaten), and the thing about the CX-5 is how unpredictable the transmission makes it. The engine has plenty of power, but downshifting three gears on the highway in a merge can be the difference between life and death. I drive about 80% in manual mode, and hate every minute of it.

Update please (I see other posts today that are somewhat related in other threads, maybe).