How was your Thanksgiving? Great? Good! Mine? Not so great. I woke up sick on Thanksgiving Day. I pushed through, took meds, got up, freshened up, put on makeup (droopy eyes and all), and head over to my family’s Thanksgiving gathering, grabbed a plate, ate 25% of my meal, and went home. I couldn’t make it through the evening. My body was so tired, eyes were so low, throat was sore, and I just couldn’t exert any more energy. I made sure I packed up two plates of food before I left. Hey – I was sick, not crazy.
2016 Mazda CX-5
Now, let’s rewind back a few days, to Monday when this beautiful SUV – the 2016 Mazda CX-5 – was delivered to my home. I was mesmerized by the color. You already know how I feel about the color red. The sleek CX-5 comfortably seats 5 with lots of legroom to spare.
The Good
- Smart City Brake Support. If you’re not aware of this feature, your heart WILL skip a few beats when it engages. With SCBS, if you’re traveling between 2 and 18 miles per hour and the vehicle detects an object in your way, it will apply the brakes for you. Yes, the car will apply the brakes for you!
- Great on gas. I didn’t have to fill up the entire week I had the SUV. To be completely fair, I didn’t drive for two days while I was sick.
- Navigation System. The navigation system has 2-D and 3-D options. In 3-D mode, you can see tall buildings and it even showed me where speed cameras were. If you’re familiar with the state of Maryland, you’ll know how much money the state makes off of those tickets.
- Blind spot monitoring
- Back-up camera
- Distance recognition system. This safety feature suggests a comfortable driving distance if you’re too close to the vehicle in front of you.
- Trunk space. Don’t let the size fool you; the CX-5 has lots of cargo space.
The Bad
- I’m not fond of how close the push-to-start button is to the windshield wipers. I broke a nail trying to turn off the vehicle one time and another time I turned the wipers on while trying to turn it off. Yeah, a bit more space between the two would be awesome.
- Without sport mode, it feels like I’m not going anywhere. When I first started driving the vehicle, I felt like something was holding the car back. It almost feels like there is no acceleration happening unless it’s in sport mode. I kept the vehicle in sport mode most of the time. This is just my preference.
- Slow to decelerate in sport mode. In sport mode, the coming to an abrupt stop feels weird. You can literally feel the vehicle switching gears as it tries to slow itself down.
All In All
All in all, I liked this vehicle. Prior to this, I’ve never driven a Mazda before so this experience was a good one. I’m very interested in trying out their sedans to see how they compare.
Price: Sport starts at $24,895; Touring starts at $26,515; Grand Touring starts at $29,870
Transmission: The FWD Sport trim is available with manual transmission – otherwise, all vehicles are equipped with automatic transmission.
Read more about the 2016 Mazda CX-5 over at Mazda and test drive it at a local dealership.
I was not compensated for this post. This vehicle was given to me to test drive. All opinions are my own.
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