Hello

[Premacy5]

Hi,

Just bought a 2010 Maxda5 sport manual a week ago from a dealer in Dayton, OH.
Get really good deal without trade in, military or loyalty discount.
This is my first Mazda.

I notice the suspension seem kinda unsettled on the highway. Is this normal? It feels like it have bad shock already. I checked the shock and no leaks. The car only have 300 miles on it now. My other car did not show this kind of behavior.

 

[J.P.]

Check the tire pressures - cars are shipped with something like 45 psi in them, and the techs are supposed to drop them during the "PDI". If they didn't, set them to the pressure on the drivers door sticker (34 PSI front and rear). If they are ok, go back and ask to drive a demo to compare. Mine feels very secure on the freeway, unless the crosswinds are really heavy.

 

[thaxman]

Have the tires set to the correct temps while cold, i.e, driven less than 1 mi. Otherwise they warm up and the pressure increases, and it can be difficult to gauge the correct pressure. After some of my other vehicles, I can say this car is very well settled at freeway speeds. Its not a Benz, of course, but does better than all my past cars xcpt the accord and T-Bird (nothing was more settled than THAT car.)

 

[Premacy5]

I checked the tire pressure and they are all set at 34 PSI.
I might just put it in for warranty work while I still have spare car.

I start to like this car more than my Forester Turbo with 5MT. The Forester have much heavier clutch and the MT are way sub par. The Forester have a lot more powerful engine but really hard to drive fast due to their jerkiness.

 

[flcruising]

Can you define more of what you mean by unsettled?

 

[DKaz]

Welcome and congratulations! I can only speculate that you're either driving through some good crosswinds or the suspension is stiffer than what you're used to, Mazdas generally have stiffer suspension than the competition for better handling at the cost of comfort... not jawbreakingly bad by any means, I love my Mazda's handling to comfort tuning vs. the take speed bumps at 100km/h and hardly feel a thing suspension on my old 08 Corolla that had absolutely no feel for the road and horrible sporty handling... agreed with the 5's stick shift, Mazda makes one of the best feeling stick shifts out there and fortunately the 5 is a benefactor to this!

 

[mazdadude]

Having experienced both, I will agree that the unsettled feeling from crosswinds is nearly identical to that of a bad shock!

 

[Premacy5]

Well it might be the unsettled feeling from cross wind. My Forester are a bit lowered using Swift springs STI rear sway. Honestly never remember how it drives when it was stock. The only thing I remember is it handles pretty bad and requiring a lot of modification just to be acceptable for me. The 5 in the other hand seems pretty acceptable but I feel the rear a bit unsettled at highway speed. To me it feels the same as driving car with bad shock or way too soft springs.

 

[J.P.]

It could be worth going back and testing another 5 on the highway. At least then, you would have an idea if it is just your 5, or a characteristic of all 5s before you waste a lot of time on it. The other reason I suggest that is many manufacturers will not cover alignment under warranty. So the sooner you report it, the lower the chance they will say you hit something, and charge you for the alignment. It is not unheard of to have a bad shock right from the factory either, especially with the track record that the 5 has with rear shocks.