Gadgetory

it's a tough room when you're up against a Ford Escape Toyota rav4 and Honda CRV Mazda strides in there with its zum-zum promise can it hold its own let's drive the 2015 cx-5 Grand Touring and check the temp and the cx-5 is a two row five-passenger crossover no third row optional or standard in this guy fairly compact in its line it is - the Mazda 6 when a bmw x3 is - a 3-series to kind of stack the concept here now you've got a lean Spartan sporty cabin in the cx-5 that goes with its zoom zoom driving character the main text Ori is the optional navigation system in this otherwise stock Grand Touring head unit this is TomTom powered stuff it's a mixed bag in my opinion first of all you've got kind of a pedestrian looking overview map that oddly enough puts traffic in this weird little linear band on the right instead of overlaying it really richly on the map that to me is kind of an odd interface on the other hand as you get close to a turn or an interchange it does a great job in fact it changes to a totally different look to show you what lane to be in and micro guide you so that I like a lot on the other hand you've got a mix of interfaces hit the screen and you get this classic TomTom interface you might know from your pnd but if you want to drive by voice ready navigation you get this very different list of choices not the same as what's on the TomTom map and certainly not the same look and feel that to me is not good interface design and that nav is grafted on by the way over here in this odd little door on the side of the dash you slide that open and that's where the SD card goes obviously you've got Bluetooth calling bluetooth streaming under your audio choices you're not going to be missing anything we've got an AM and FM radio with a handy HD toggle I like this as opposed to letting the radio do its own switching they tend to make a hash of that Sirius satellite radio bluetooth streaming is right next to Pandora working off your app everything is kind of slow on this connected stuff especially on the Bluetooth and Pandora I just feel like this system is kind of overburdened it doesn't move very crisply so your car glancing back after you invoke something to see if it's up yet and that takes your eyes and mind off the road same thing goes for acquiring the iPod and other sources but at least all the things you want are here as well as traditional optical discs and aux beyond that pretty pedestrian 6-speed automatic only in this trim level of the vehicle you've got a sport gate on the side no paddles are available though it sounds surprising given Mazdas sporting intentions and this vehicle new this year has a sort of city braking technology to prevent rear Enders of automatic braking something Volvo pioneered a couple of years ago now under the hood they used to stick only a 2-liter in these cars now they have an obstacle two and a half liter in the higher trim vehicles like we have here this is a SKYACTIV inline 4 sitting sidesaddle SKYACTIV means high compression 13 to 1 yet using regular gas if you don't understand the high compression thing it's very simple it means getting more power out of an ounce of gasoline if you will by compressing it's that much more but that tends to be a difficult thing to do in most engines especially with regular so they use a combination of some interesting piston dome shaping direct injection and some kind of long cooling exhaust runners that come off the back of the engine in other words very efficient but not that tricky you know electrification nothing like that no turbos the bottom line is 184 horsepower 185 foot-pounds of torque pretty respectable numbers for a car that weighs about 3400 pounds rather on the light side thanks to the use of a lot of what they call high-strength steel that is strong but weighs less less mass in the actual metal 0 to 60 is about 8 seconds in this guy nvg 2532 front wheel drive you get about a 2 mpg haircut if you go all-wheel drive and at this higher trim levels 6 B automatic only lower trim cx-5 do offer a six-speed manual okay underway the main thing I want to gauge here is does Mazda deliver on its engaged driver zum-zum stuff that's always been sort of their claim to differentiation at first blush I'd say somewhat yes this is not an overpowering car but it does have good responsiveness compared to a lot of vehicles today that have got this rubbery kind of drivetrain I missed the fact that it has no paddles I'd like to see that on a car that has a fairly taut feel power deliveries pretty good the suspensions not wallowing and yet the ride quality is good it doesn't punish you with too much road chatter feedback and last thing is ergonomics are quite good in this vehicle everything kind of falls where your hands naturally are and visibility yeah it's very compromised in the rear those giant sea pillars are just one of the defining characteristics of compact crossovers but beyond that it's a it's a very comfortable vehicle to get natural with very quickly now pricing the cx-5 Grand Touring top of the stack automatic only twenty eight eight another twelve fifty gets you all wheel drive you're also gonna take a two mpg hit more or less on your fuel economy 1425 for the tech package I get you the TomTom navigator voidance in city traffic also bi-xenon hid headlights with automatic headlight control as well you