Newbie - help me decide to keep this car!

[dishe]

You can always get a beater minivan or 5-seat truck to do your bidding when you aren't tooling around town in your stylish Mazda5. I throw everything in the bed of the truck for camping or hauling junk around. Its there when I need it, but the truck only sees maybe 2000K/year.

An idea, but its cheaper to get a roof rack when we need it, and take it off when we don't.

 

[professorhank]

The mounting model they recommend for the Mazda5 clips under the door frame, pinching the weather stripping and just not looking all that great personally. Someone else seems to have found out that a different offering from Yakima will actually work in the stock mounting points on the Mazda, no pinching, etc... however it is not recommended by Yamika OR Mazda, and it seems that people are modifying it a bit to fit (cutting poles, inserting spacers for sunroof clearance, etc).

FYI that up until about a year ago, Yakima recommended the door clip/Q-towers for the Mazda5. This was just about the time that many of us here started experimenting with the Control Tower/Landing Pad combination which bolts directly into the roof fixpoints. Lo and behold, a few months after our discussions here, Yakima has revised their online fit guide to recommend the Control Tower/Landing Pad 11 combo for our car. There's probably still some outdated paper catalog/fit guides floating around local sporting goods store with the old door clip recommendation.

 

[professorhank]

Ouch, I was wondering how long it would take for the negative nancy to pipe in and say this. Yes, my wife and I went to test drive one a couple of years ago. We didnt have the money for a new car at the time, and one less kid as well... it seemed perfect.
When I found an 07 at the auction for $9k, I decided to jump on it, although we hadn't re-evaluated since the baby was born.

Now, wanting this car has a lot more to it than just wanting to drive "a coupe reminiscent of my younger days"... Its a financial decision. The m5 is generally cheaper to buy, own, and maintain than a van or suv, and gets better MPG. I'm tight for cash right now, and spending MORE money on a larger vehicle that will still cost MORE money in fuel to drive, well that just seems silly if I can make this work. The fact that it is fun to drive is icing on the cake!

But I took your advice last night and packed up the family for our first test trip: COSTCO! We bought a folding table, amoung other things. I put half the rear seat down, put most of the stuff there, then slid the table standing up in the aisle between the two middle seats.
The car passed our test so far! In fact, my daughter really liked having the groceries next to her instead of in the trunk... she could be "in charge of it", and poke around at the food, etc.

I'm definitely leaning towards keeping this.

I have no doubt you can make it work. Humans can adapt quite well to anything. And maybe I'm not even the best one to dispense advice (heck, it's the Internet) since I frankly don't think I'll ever, EVER have a passenger in the 3rd row. I just wanted something with a moderate amount of space and more stylish than the box on wheels shape (Element, xB, Cube).

 

[dishe]

I have no doubt you can make it work. Humans can adapt quite well to anything. And maybe I'm not even the best one to dispense advice (heck, it's the Internet) since I frankly don't think I'll ever, EVER have a passenger in the 3rd row. I just wanted something with a moderate amount of space and more stylish than the box on wheels shape (Element, xB, Cube).

See, that's where we differ. Until I had a third kid, I was never interested in a larger vehicle or extra space. I loved our little compact cars ('01 Sentra and 96 Neon), and we managed to take the whole family + camping gear + stroller+ food for the week and go on long road trips. It was often uncomfortably cramped (stuff at their feet, rear window shelf, as well as whatever fit in the tiny trunk), but it was always an adventure, and we always loved it. Getting out was like a clown car.
And I usually averaged 30+MPG.

However since the baby was born, we found it unnecessarily difficult to buckle the seatbelt of a booster seat with another car seat right next to it. Not to mention we lose the middle seat to store things on long trips. Hence a car with more spread out seats, but not too large as to be hard to park/significantly reduce gas mileage, seems like a GREAT idea!

I do appreciate the concern, however, and you know what- a healthy forum needs someone to play devil's advocate now and then to keep the discussion balanced. Thanks for taking one for the team. I'm proud to be the owner of a Mazda5 for now. Thanks you guys!

 

[skyhawk]

We have the car seat on 2nd row driver side. There is no comparison with other vehicle in terms of 'ease of securing the little ones'. You slide the door open, off the child goes to the car seat, and you buckle them. There is no bending or 'crawling' in. After few years the child climbs on his own and secure themselves. And if you use Britax car seat, the height is such that the baby/child has full view of the outside. There is no problem of the little ones getting dizzy wondering 'whats going on outside the car' -- which is what happens when car seat is located low and in the middle of the row.

 

[thaxman]

I loved our little compact cars ('01 Sentra and 96 Neon), and we managed to take the whole family + camping gear + stroller+ food for the week and go on long road trips. It was often uncomfortably cramped (stuff at their feet, rear window shelf, as well as whatever fit in the tiny trunk), but it was always an adventure, and we always loved it. Getting out was like a clown car.
And I usually averaged 30+MPG.

We took my Accord wagon for its last "hurrah" last summer - wife, 3 kids, 4 days of camping from S AZ all the way up the middle of the state to the Grand Canyon and back down, visiting a total of about 7 different National Monuments and sites. I had water socks, a hatchet and other items not needing climate control stored inside the spare tire well, batteries, lights and all sorts of stuff inside every cubby, the undersides of the front seats were packed with socks, hiking shoes, etc. We STILL managed to put a large cooler, tent, 2 air matresses, 4 sleeping bags and some blankets inside the car along with toiletries, clothes and snacks. I have no idea how I did it, because I definitely got close to max load rating, but still got 28.5 mpg from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon & back with a few side stops. Something like 425 miles on that tank! I didn't want to take the truck, since I knew we would top 1000 miles easily & would max out around 16 mpg.

 

[dishe]

We took my Accord wagon for its last "hurrah" last summer - wife, 3 kids, 4 days of camping from S AZ all the way up the middle of the state to the Grand Canyon and back down, visiting a total of about 7 different National Monuments and sites. I had water socks, a hatchet and other items not needing climate control stored inside the spare tire well, batteries, lights and all sorts of stuff inside every cubby, the undersides of the front seats were packed with socks, hiking shoes, etc. We STILL managed to put a large cooler, tent, 2 air matresses, 4 sleeping bags and some blankets inside the car along with toiletries, clothes and snacks. I have no idea how I did it, because I definitely got close to max load rating, but still got 28.5 mpg from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon & back with a few side stops. Something like 425 miles on that tank! I didn't want to take the truck, since I knew we would top 1000 miles easily & would max out around 16 mpg.

...that's how I intend to drive mine. Good stuff, man! All that without a roof rack!

 

[dishe]

FYI that up until about a year ago, Yakima recommended the door clip/Q-towers for the Mazda5. This was just about the time that many of us here started experimenting with the Control Tower/Landing Pad combination which bolts directly into the roof fixpoints. Lo and behold, a few months after our discussions here, Yakima has revised their online fit guide to recommend the Control Tower/Landing Pad 11 combo for our car. There's probably still some outdated paper catalog/fit guides floating around local sporting goods store with the old door clip recommendation.

All the online guides I've looked at still said the door clip / Q-towers.
Currently, the fit kits for Thule and Inno are sold out EVERYWHERE I look online! After speaking to the folks at ORSracks, they said I can always go with the Q-tower clip offering- aside from a few random posts on this forum, I don't see any formal acknowlegdment that anything else will properly fit on our car.

Can you point me to an "updated" Yakima guide or something?

 

[professorhank]

All the online guides I've looked at still said the door clip / Q-towers.
Currently, the fit kits for Thule and Inno are sold out EVERYWHERE I look online! After speaking to the folks at ORSracks, they said I can always go with the Q-tower clip offering- aside from a few random posts on this forum, I don't see any formal acknowlegdment that anything else will properly fit on our car.

Can you point me to an "updated" Yakima guide or something?

OK, this is weird. I went to www.yakima.com and tried the various roof rack bundles that they recommend for bikes and kayaks and other stuff and yes, you are correct. They recommend the Q-tower system. I swear that about 6 months ago, their website recommended the Control Tower/Landing Pad 11 setup. Did anyone else see what I saw on their website about 6 months ago?