The Bad

· Handles very poorly in a crosswind

· Lane keeping assist is useless, I’ve never felt it nudge back from the lane stripe

· Lane watch only alerts when you are actually on the dividing line

· Adaptive Cruse Control from a stop starts up much too slowly and waits until way too close to break when approaching a stopped car

· In cold weather the heater fan comes on before the car is warmed up blasting you with cold air

· The seats aren’t comfortable for a long trip, the sides push up too much on your legs. I’m 6’1” and 200 lbs so may not be a problem for smaller folks

· Blind spot monitoring, great idea, miserable implementation. Alerts over aggressively, when cars are way behind or a lane over

· Android Auto startup is extremely slow and frequently fails

· Head unit has failed a few times requiring turning the car off to restart properly

· Interior button to open the rear liftgate requires the doors to be unlocked to work

· Walk away lock doesn’t always work, I’ve occasionally returned to the car to find it unlocked



Dealer (Town North Mazda, Richardson, TX)

· Being new to leasing, I didn’t notice that the dealer finance officer was basing the lease on above sticker price, far more than I would have paid to buy the car. At end of lease, I won’t pay the resulting exorbitant price to purchase the car.

· Service manager never spoke to me when I took the car in for service (Covid maybe but there are many ways around that)



The Good

· I really like the red color and the nearly white interior

· It’s quiet

· Gas mileage is good, I’m averaging over 28 mpg mostly city driving

· Fully automatic windows all around

· Automatic liftgate

· Android Auto

· Sound system is good most of the time

 

Interesting note on the lease deal. What you described is very unusual. The price paid should have been listed just as it would on a traditional purchase and should not have been more than MSRP. The major key on the lease is the money factor charged. You have a '19 as I do and the GT's were leasing at a crazy cheap rate when I got mine (almost 0%). What I try to do is pay around 1% of the MSRP per month before tax as a good deal. For instance - my car (a GT fwd with PP) listed for a little over $33k and my lease is ~330/mth + tax for 36mth and 12k/yr

 

For these comments, my reference points are: a rental 2020 CX-5 w/ Tech and iActiveSense, and an owned 2016.5 CX-5 GT w/ Tech but without iActiveSense.

Tough engineering problem, to be tolerant of commonplace intentional lane crossing yet to still warn of unintentional lane wandering or crossing. A few months ago, had a rental 2020 CX-5 (w/ Tech and iActiveSense). Appreciated the notification, but understood the problem involved. Had it been any more aggressive and barked every time I gradually did a lane change, I'd have turned the darned thing off.

As for lane assist, I view it as an assist, not an automatic-driving feature. And so, given that I'm often changing lanes, even if somewhat slowly, the last thing I'd want is for some "fly-by-wire" feature to refuse my steering controls and to shove me back in a lane I'm attempting to exit.

All in all, it seemed a reasonable compromise, given the judgment call involved with such a warning.


Along with the Smart City Brake thing, I believe it's a feature for distance convenience, not crash avoidance. So, it makes sense it wouldn't be so much of an automatic-driving feature but instead something to help be a bit safer than would otherwise be the case.

In the 2020 CX-5 rental I had, a few blocks outside of the airport rental area I pulled aside and spent a few minutes going through all of the personalization settings, altering the door locks, cruise/distance settings, lighting settings, etc. Turned the Adaptive Cruise Control's distance setting to maximum (3sec, IIRC), and then spent the next few days watching how the Smart City Brake and the ACC features reacted to slowing traffic, even stopped traffic ... particularly when I was at a closing-rate that was rapid versus only a few mph. Useful, though nobody's "automatic" driving and braking.

Might be worth having a personalization setting for the Smart City Braking feature, allowing a person (much like with Adaptive Cruise Control) to adjust within a range of settings the level of aggressiveness of "smart" braking in a situation involving rapid closing-rate of speed. I seem to be okay with a more-sedate braking, whereas you clearly want a more-aggressive level. Perhaps Mazda will add that to the feature set in future rigs, or offer an update within the nav/map/system updates.


Really dislike that, too, on my 2016.5.

In the 2020 rental, I disliked that quite a bit as well. The week I had it, the weather almost hit the single digits, so the first ~10mins of warming up was always a bit of a surprise, until things got warmer. Got modestly toasty after 10mins, though, which was a nice surprise, but did take 30mins or more to banish all the little cold air gremlins lurking about the cabin space. Too long to fully warm the cabin area, IMO.

Even worse in my 2016.5 CX-5 GT. Takes a good 30mins or more of driving about with the heat on "high" before I really can't feel frigid cold any longer inside the cabin. Takes far longer before all of the little cold air gremlins are completely gone.

IMO, generally speaking, the heater needs about 2x the "punch" of heat that it currently puts out, and the routing of air needs to be a bit more effective at getting throughout the passenger cabin areas. A couple of blasting fans are nice and all. But, if it's not pumping out sufficient heat in the first place, particularly if not routed everywhere the cold is sneaking about, it takes a long time to do much good.


I'm heavier than you, and I'll assume likely wider in the lats/back. I also find the bolsters are designed for a bit narrower person. Though, they seem to be soft enough to not be all that intrusive, at least for me.

As for seat base angle, are you able to reduce the angle sufficiently to not push up into the back of the legs? But at that level do you feel you're sliding a little forward?

Myself, on the 2016.5 as well as the 2020 rental I had, there's a particular spot that seems a decent compromise. Sufficently rearward tilting on the angle of the base to keep me in place, but not so high in the front of the seat base that it's pushing too much onto the back of my legs.

Would love to have "premium" seating in these vehicles to allow much more control of things like bolsters, lumbar, leg extension, leg support firmness and leg support height. An 8- or 10-way seat is great, but lacking in numerous areas of adjustment. IMO there needs to be some way to make adjustments to these other aspects in order for a seat to be truly comfortable for such a range of body sizes, shapes, muscle firmness, etc.

I'm hard on seats. Being heavier, and sliding over the driver's side bolster roughly as I do (due to old injuries, on controlling such hip angle as I enter/egress), seats don't last more than a few years for me. If this one begins to go squishy on me, bolster-wise, I'll be seriously considering something like a Recaro Ergomed. Spendy little units, but they last many years and are firmer and more adjustable.


I agree, mostly. I appreciate being warned earlier, when cars are nearing the "blind spot" to the rear (in neighboring lanes). I've got all of those warning sensors set to max settings, so it's definitely earnest in forewarning me. But I'm okay with it. Haven't tuned it out, but being newer to this crossover/SUV format I do appreciate the heads-up even if it's seemingly a bit early.

With the rear cross-traffic warning, I love how the max setting duly notifies well in advance. In tighter parking lots, I've had it warn me of an approaching vehicle well ahead of damage time, which given that one must back out partially in order to even see such things is a blessing. Love it.


It's based on the radar (?) proximity sensing associated with the key fob. I've noticed that if after closing the door I "hang out" briefly and allow the proximity sensor to recognize where I am, then it works 100% of the time. But if I rush away from the door as I close it behind me, often I'm outside the bubble before it recognizes I've crossed over the threshold.

Turned the door lock settings to loudest, and I always listen for the loud "chirp" upon exit. Combined with a slightly sedate exit speed from the doors after parking, it works all the time. Haven't had a failure to arm yet, that way. Might try that, as it's easy enough to do.


On the 2016.5 GT I've noticed that as well.

This year, I'll be doing looking to do a few alterations (light bulbs, possibly fog lights, possibly sound deadening). So hopefully I'll see what "serious" sound deadening matting along the doors, hood and flooring will do. Probably overkill, but a nice enhancement.


Sounds great. 28mpg for mostly city driving. On the 2016.5 I get on average between 23-24mpg with "mostly city," though clearly it's highly variable based on how a person drives, the number of times a traffic control requires stopping and acceleration, the terrain.


One thing I've noticed on a couple of occasions is: the auto-up and auto-down feature on the driver's side front window doesn't function, though it starts working after a few minutes of driving and attempting the window control. Once occurred for a few minutes' of driving following disconnection of the battery (during a spark plug swap), though again it started working after awhile. Hasn't occurred frequently enough to show a clear pattern, and hasn't occurred but a handful of times. Always begins working after a few minutes, often after stopping at the next traffic light or parking.