On my third 5....

[rodslinger]

And how patrioic of me. Have had a red one, a white one and now a blue one... Picked up a 2010 Sport auto, galaxy blue, black interior, auto, PEP and dimming mirror.

I was honestly getting tired of driving the manual on the 08. I like it but it isn't the best driving stick I've ever had. I describe it as easy to drive hard, hard to drive easy. It always seems to buck and heave in stop and go traffic, overly sensitive throttle tip-in and jerky with the A/C on. That is the 10th car I've had with a manual and the only one that seems to be a pain in the ass to drive smoothly. On the other hand when I've got to get somewhere quick, it drove great. Keep the revs up and it was fun to drive fast.

I actually like the new 5 speed auto. Nice improvement over the 4 speed unit that we had in the 06. Drives great.

 

[mpvue]

I always find it interesting to see how people describe the manual performance. I too have driven mostly stick cars for many years, and I thought the M5 is one of the easiest, esp compared to my previous, a saturn VUE. but everyone is different.
I'm actually very bad at driving auto trand cars; I'm always fighting w/ it, trying to control the shifts w/ the throttle.

 

[SuperJETT]

That sounds like my Honda Element manual I had for a few years. Very easy to drive it, but not smooth all the time, mainly because it was geared so low---3500rpm @ 70mph in 5th and 1st would only get you up to maybe 20mph. The iVtec engine had tons of torque down low which is why it was so easy to get rolling.

 

[DKaz]

Congrats rodslinger, we need photos!

I like the Mazda 5's manual, a lot better than my Corolla's. I can roll out of my condo's parkade no problems, I can go 100m before the hill gets steep enough that I have to step on the gas. And agreed with the automatics... I can never accelerate an automatic smoothly. Maybe I'm out of practice?

 

[rodslinger]

I'll get pics probably next weekend. I have to go back to Miami on Tuesday. I'll be taking the Spec-V back down then. I'll be in Bogota, Colombia Wednesday and Thursday and will be bringing the 08 back from Miami to Atlanta on Friday. When I get my wheels swapped over I'll snap some pics. I like the blue color quite a bit.