Need traveling/luggage advice!
 

We just bought a 2010 m5 and we are planning a snowboarding trip from Tulsa Oklahoma to Colorado. We will have 4 adults and a carseat. So u do the math, that leaves 1 back seat empty to fold down for luggage, we plan on packing light but I think we might need more room? Should I get a roof rack and cargo box? Would a snowboard fit inside somehow, maybe along the side between the sliding door and seat? We are just bringing one snowboard.
Any advice or knowledge about roof racks and mpg would be appreciate too. Does it make a huge difference in mpg because of the drag? Thanks!

Hello ruissar... I have an 08 model... now I don't know how long a snow board is but down the side is not an option, given the 2010 model is the same as the 08. it may be possible to set it in the middle between the two second row seats, (that is if it is not too long that you can't close the hatch). as far as luggage, everybody has there own definition of "packing light", with four adults you may be able to stack the bags on one side (again depending on the definition of packing light). there is quite a bit of room top to bottom. as for gas mileage... four adults, car seat, baby/toddler, plus luggage... you should be ok until you start to hit the hills and mountains and then the 2.3 liter will be working very hard. do you have the manual or auto?... sorry for the long reply.

Thanks for the long reply! The snowboard is about five feet, that's a good idea of keeping it in the middle, if we can pack our bags from floor to ceiling in the back, it would be awesome to avoid carrying anything on the roof. And it's two married couples so bags are going to be combined. As long as we can convince our wives that we don't need to bring a whole wardrobe lol. I'm fine with bringing a few items and washing them. And our son will be two years old in a carseat so we can hog his legroom with stuff too. It's gonna be a sight!

Oh and it's an automatic, I guess the manual gets better mpg? I guess I should use the manual option on the sport shifter when on the hills to save the brakes, you think?

I have the auto myself and use the "manual mode quite often. the reason I asked was, when starting up a hill with that much weight in the vehicle, down shift to fourth at the base of the incline otherwise if kept in "drive mode" the tranny will bypass fourth all together at the first sign of a load on the engine and go into third. now it may kick down into third anyway in the mountains even in manual mode just don't forget to up shift into fourth, and then fifth at the top of the incline... hope this helps

married couple eh? If his wife is anything like mine you will need the roof top storage!!!:D:D:D

by the way, I'm in Mustang Oklahoma.

Good advice! Thanks

Mustang huh? So u know why we were so happy to get 5% tint last week, made a HUGE difference in cooling the car

I keep kind of a running log in my head of how well various cars do in the real world vis-à-vis their reported EPA fuel economy numbers, and the Mazda5 is no exception. As a general rule, cars equipped with real manual transmissions (you know, the kind with three pedals under the dash) return better fuel economy (sometimes significantly better) than their automatic equipped siblings (including automatic transmissions with a semi-automatic mode like the Mazda5); even when the EPA numbers show the two transmission types performing the same or even better for the automatic.

While anecdotal reports don't reall mean much from a statistical perspective, they can hint at differences; here's one example that comes to mind from the recent past:

• https://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/maz...e7/#post120314

To the best of my knowledge, I've never seen a 2.5 liter Mazda5 Automatic even approach 30 mpg much less the 33 reported in the above link.

Long story short, using the semi-automatic mode in your car may allow you to eek out a tiny bit more fuel economy, but I'd bet otherwise.

Thanks shipo, it's worth a try, we haven't done any highway driving yet in the two weeks we've had the car but we did get 25 mpg on our last fillup. I don't expect much better on a road trip full of luggage and friends but it's better than the explorer we just traded in!
I bet we will get 30 or more with just us three on the road, I will be sure and post on here when we take our first little road trip

the 2010 has the 2.3 correct or am I mistaken? either way I have never seen any MPG over 26 with the 2.3. I'm sure it's possible to get 27 but my wife has a lead foot (and that's with no luggage and just the two year old in the vagon).