Have a CX-5, 2016.5 Grand Touring. Since the beginning pretty much, the default infotainment system has been a real nuisance. It's slow enough as it is, but in cold weather it is almost completely non operational. It takes a full ten minutes - at least - of booting up to become usable. This involves a slow start up, several reboots, endless hanging and spinning gears and that irritating Warning window. During this time there is no audio, no clock, no navigation. I have just put up with it... Mazda only said "Well, we could update the software." They did that once under warranty, no improvement. They didn't seem to have any idea what to do, and I assumed there was nothing to be done about it.

Now again we are leaning into colder mornings this season, and it's just worse. Totally unusable. It's really mind boggling how poor and weak this system is. Like an after thought they put no effort into. The computational power is like a Texas Instruments calculator from 1980.

The navigation system is also pitiful. It cannot be relied upon. Constantly giving me poor directions and bad routes. I usually cross reference with Google Maps, but this is all very time consuming, and I just stopped using it altogether.

Question: Can this entire system be replaced with something newer and better? Some entire 3rd party infotainment and navigation program? The system does seem to integrate with the car itself somewhat, so, not sure how any of this works. And if yes, where can I start looking?

Thanks for any tips or guidance.

 

We bought a 2015 CX5 this week and found the infotainment system to be challenging, trying to navigate through the japanese language, then the maps and other various things that dont work here in New Zealand.

So we are also considering if we can change out to the android auto system but as long as we dont loose functionality in the dials on the centre console. Mazda dealers are fairly useless when it comes to offering workarounds or help regarding these issues as ive found so far.

 

Sean, I assume you bought a Jap import?

There is a multitude of aftermarket options for your vehicle on the internet.

 

Yes jap import. yes there are alot of options im finding.. just trying to figure whats best for what i want. So far im thinking of swapping out the av unit for an aftermarket with android auto and loosing the functionality of the toggles between the seats. Now to decide what unit.