We are about to get our first snowfall this winter and the first for our CX5 on the normally frozen wasteland of Vancouver Island. I doubt we'll get that much, but is it ever necessary to use the off road mode on the M drive in the snow or just let it use the AWD?

 

Every situation is dependent on your driving situations so you would need to be the ultimate judge of any driving setting in adverse driving road and weather conditions.

 

Here in Maine, I never used anything but the AWD mode when using my CX-5 and it has been fine.
But I also have great all-weather tires and learned to drive in a rear-wheel-drive V8 powered autos the size of battleships.
We learned how to drive in snow as getting those stuck could mean they were there until spring or could find passing fleet of tugboats
Back in the days when we had blizzards nearly every week and my street was often snowed in two- four days multiple times a winter.
I can recall my father taking the snowmobile to work back in the 1960's and 70's because many of the side roads were not passable.

 

We have had snow like that but very rarely. I was thinking that we would just leave it in AWD and only try the off road if we really got stuck . In the past 40 years , we have only got stuck twice, once in our old Mustang and again in our Mazda 6. Thanks!

 

in my previous car (subaru legacy) i would typically use the awd but if it's really slippery i would use the manual shift mode that you're speaking of mainly to downshift to use engine braking to slow down instead of the brakes while barely touching the brakes just to turn on the brake lights for cars behind me...it has snowed a couple times since i bought the cx-5 (got 2" this morning) but it hasn't been anything really substantial with bad conditions so i haven't really used the manual shift mode other than to play around with it a little but i plan to approach it the same way with the cx-5

 

Amen to that!

 

My wife and I drive a 2022 and 2023 CX-5 Signature. Both have good winter tires on them as we live in the snow belt of New York State. I have always put winter tires on my vehicles up here and these are the first AWD vehicles that we have owned. AWD and winter tires on the CX-5 makes it in an almost magical vehicle in the snow. It almost never starts to slide and, when it does, a little press on the accelerator pulls the vehicle straight out of it. I have Blizzaks and my wife has Vredestein winter tires. Side by side I would say the Vredesteins are much better because they are so quiet and have excellent snow and ice traction. My Blizzaks are grippy but noisy!

 

We have just had our first snowfall, and the car just did fine ! I was a little disappointed that we never got stuck as I wanted to see that if we did, the off road drive would help! We have both always used the manual downshift all throughout the year. We do not have true snow tires as unlike the rest of Canada , we often do not get a real winter! Vey few around here do! I know why they would be better.

 

At least you won't have to worry about any future snow now

 

Yes, I doubt we'll get any more snow now. This was very late for us to get our first snow, We have already had cherry blossom out, people have mown their lawns , and I have worn my shorts!