2014 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring AWD Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

2014 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring AWD Long-Term Road Test

Turning over 20,000 miles on Edmunds.com's long-term 2014 Mazda CX-5.

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duck87

It's probably worth retelling that the Impreza's fuel economy was not impressive (heh) compared to the CX-5 and CR-V, which is pretty sad considering they're both something like 300 lbs. +. On top of that Subaru saddled the Impreza with a CVT (which did cause an issue for you guys, IIRC) in the name of fuel economy... fat lot of good that did. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the interior cabin of the CX-5 looks better finished!

fordson1

"It's not all about cargo, either. It's fun to twist the CX-5's wheel and it's also a pretty nice place to sit." Minus the need to haul cargo, I think I would be driving a regular car...which I am. This CX-5 is definitely one of the best of its type, no doubt, and subjectively pleasing to drive. These crossovers are handy for sure, but for actual performance they match the state of the art for a regular car of maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Wondering why this vehicle, either with this 2.5 or the base 2.0, needs a 160 mph speedo with the markings all crowded together, especially with the thick needle this one has.

legacygt

The Impreza is a sad story. The car was "dumbed down" in the name of delivering great fuel economy. Some might have accepted the drop in power and the CVT if it really delivered on the fuel economy front. But it doesn't and that's sad. My brother's Outback with the 2.5 and the CVT gets nearly the same real world mileage and is much larger. That said the Impreza still delivers a world class AWD system (something the CX-5 and other small mainstream CUVs don't) that is probably not appreciated as much in SoCal as in some other regions.

I've been reading the long term blog posts for a long time and I don't think I can recall a car getting as much love as the CX-5. I appreciated the earlier post comparing it to an X3. Of course it's not in the same class and gives up some performance. But it's a lot of fun. Very efficient. And over-delivers relative to its price.

explorerx4

To me, Edmunds is just putting a lot of miles on this to keep the MPG average up.
It's pretty anonymous overall. Red is a good color for it.

jeisensc1

Granted it's the first all-Kodo/all-SkyActiv vehicle that Mazda made, but it's also very unrefined. No doubt they sell well, but once the new car smell wanes, frustrated Mazda owners flock to their service departments and message boards where they find no relief. My experience has been that the CX-5 is buggy, and Mazda service departments are not able to service them quickly and resolve issues. I took my CX-5 in 5 times before Mazda acknowledged the remote start system was defective, and it spent a total of 7 days in service to be fixed. http://www.cxfail.com