Hello, I’m looking to buy a used CX-5 and have come across something odd. Two cars are 2016 Touring models. Oddly, the older of the two has very low miles (12,062) and the newer one has 41,165. However the build date on the newer one is unusual. Typically, I see model year production beginning around August or September. The newer model shows an 11/16 build date.

9/15: JM3KE2CY5G072xxxx (12,062 miles)
11/16: JM3KE2CY3G089xxxx (41,165 miles)

I confirmed both VINs with the NHTSA website and they are both 2016 models. Any reason why Mazda went so deep into the calendar year with 2016 production?

Thanks.

 

My guess is the 11/16 is a MY2016.5, which was followed almost immediatly by the 2017 gen 2 cars. Mazda really opened a can of worms when they introduced the 2014 model CX-5 in early 2013 and continued to change model year designations about 6 months earlier then normal up until they remedied the situation by introducing the 2017 more or less on schedule.

 

My CX-5 is officially a 2016.5, could the two model years explain the anomaly? I'm not near the car, so I can't check the build date.