Mazda5 owners?

[Jeni-GAcpst]

Who owns a mazda5? Do you love it?

What year?
How many miles?
How much do you spend on maintenance each year?

Do you think a mazda5 could last 200,000+ miles?

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

Second row all the way back when CR is installed. Is that so you don't accidentally move a forward position seat further back after CR is installed thus introducing slack?
Could one make an educated decision to have the second row a click forward and know to verify seat belt install? Is the same requirement in place for latch?

Latch limit defers, right? Britax would be 40lbs and Graco 48lbs?

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

Well there's only one 5-speed mazda5 within 250 miles of my house, and it's priced about $2000 above blue book ... So I'll either be waiting a while or going with automatic transmission. Hmm.

 

[Avery'sMama]

We watched and waited and drive out of state to find ours.


We have a 2007 we purchased with about 45k miles on it, about a year ago this fall. It's DH's car, I drive a normal sized mini-van. We are happy with it. No maintenance yet except new tires which are specialty low profile tired and were more expensive. We always have four seats in there and it's fine- except when I forgot I had the Mazda and went to Costco with all four kids. That was not find.

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

Thanks!

Funny - you can tell different regions by car info. The 2007 Mazda5 available here all have 100,000+ miles on them
My 2003 suv has 230,000 miles on it and still runs great. Looking to trade up while there's still life on it!

 

[Dillipop]

We bought a new 2012 mazda5 after our elantra was totalled last December. I really like it. It gets good mileage and is so versatile for our needs. I like to have my boostered kids in the middle row and I have my rfing 2 year old in the third row in a radian with angle adjuster. It fits there awesomely! I just load dd through the hatch, which is small so super easy.

We decided to go with a new one because I knew I wanted 2009 or newer, since that is when the third row belts were "fixed." They still don't provide a great fit for a backless booster rider though. When we were looking, we could get a 2009 for 13 or 14K with about 50K miles on them. Or we could get a brand new one for 18.5K with no miles and the full warranty. We just felt the extra money was worth it for us.

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

I definitely agree about the price difference

The 2008 are in the $8000 range here and the 2007 are $6000+. My car is worth about $4k if I sell personally or maybe $2k trade in. That makes us nicely in the pay-cash range and cheap insurance since we won't need collision.
If I can drive 100,000 miles with a car that costs under $4000, I'll take it!

I'll definitely check out the back seatbelts. We're a tall family and my daughter is not skinny (97% height, 75% weight) so maybe the belts fit us differently. My son is skinny though (75-90% height and less than 50% weight) so I'll definitely look out for seat belt fit.
Thanks!

 

[Defrost]

My '07 has 170K miles on it and it's going strong. Just regular maintanence stuff. I'm teaching two of my sons to drive in it, though, so I expect we'll be replacing the manual transmission on it! My dad does all my maintanence for me, so I'm not really sure what I spend.

The only things that are broken are the visor clips and one vent adjustor. One of the vanity covers on a back seat post is floating around the car, but I just need to pop it back in place. The visor clips were really tight to begin with and took a lot of force to pop out, so I'm not surprised they broke. The vent adjustor is on the passenger side, so I'm not sure what happened to it; it just kind of fell apart in my friend's hand one day. Oh, and the radio rattles. I just turn up the volume! I also replaced the factory rims with larger ones the year I got it.

I forgot; I do have a belt going out. It's only squealing at highway speeds right now, and not frequently enough to pinpoint.

 

[SavsMom]

We just recently bought a 2006 with 54k. So far I LOVE it. It drives nicely, it's peppy and I love the sliding doors and the ease of loading my 2 kids.

The one we purchased had been well maintained but does need new sway bar bushings - a fairly common thing in the early years on the 5 from what I have seen.

My father is a used car dealer so we purchased ours at a dealer auction. Having been looking for the right buy for awhile I will say it was nice to see how many 5s came through the dealer auction with well over 100k miles on them - there were a ton- all in good running condition.

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

Awesome.
Thank you, both.

I test drove a 2008 today and loved it. Drove very nicely. I liked the way the driver sear sits like a chair rather than all laid back like sports cars.
I'm not hot on the Size4Me rfing fit in the captain's chairs, but with latch I think I can make it work. Frontier85 fit perfect.

Seat belt fit great on me in the back row. It was flush on my sternum and collar bone, but I noticed the belt comes from parallel above my collarbone rather than behind me. I'd feel confident it could hold *me* correctly. I guess we'll see how the kiddos grow.

Now just to find one in the right price range with 1-2 owners

 

[teekadog]

Love mine. 2007 bought new, 67,000 miles now. Maintenance has been a bit more than our toyota echo but the 5 has more miles. No major problems. Have to replace the tires more often than the echo. They seem to wear quickly no matter what we do. Passenger side vent adjustor falls apart on mine too. Weird. We expect to drive it til it dies. Or we give it to one of our kids. So we figure we have 10-15 more years with it. Fingers crossed because we love it!

Currently frontier85 and regent in the 3rd row, radian and coccoro in the middle. Someone on here verified that the manual says to push second row all the way back so you don't accidentally introduce slack in the seatbelt install. Regent is expiring so we're going to switch to frontier85 and coccoro in the 3rd row, radian and Jane Indy plus booster in the second. Loading kids in the 3rd row is easy unless you are trying to unload a sleeping baby so I try to keep RFers in the 2nd row, but the radian doesn't install FFing in my 3rd row and the shoulder belt hangs up in my Jane booster in the 3rd row- I have the old style 3rd row shoulder belts.

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

Thanks!
I appreciate the feedback.

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

I read on one of the forums, maybe Edmunds.com?, That there is something that rubs the tires and make somewhere out faster. People have been replacing whatever this item is with aftermarket product and everything is better with tire wear. I can't think off the top of my head what it is…

 

[teekadog]

It's a camber issue. We don't see to have that issue. Our tires wear evenly, just seems like it's quick. It's frustrating because the tires we need for the 5 are more expensive than the ones we need for the echo and it seems like we rarely need to place those.

 

[Defrost]

I have the tire problem on mine, and they do definitely wear unevenly, but mine is likely worse because I switched out the rims and tires for a different size (smaller rims, bigger tires - I was having major issues in very light snow.) It didn't affect gas mileage, though.

 

[teekadog]

Was it worth it for the handling in light snow? Because ours handles so poorly in light snow that I just stay home- and light snow is all we get here. We've tossed around the idea of expensive snow tires but that would be SO expensive because they'd only last one season.

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

It's a camber issue. We don't see to have that issue.

Good to know.

No snow here so I'll just let y'all discuss that concern. <popcorn>

 

[Defrost]

Was it worth it for the handling in light snow? Because ours handles so poorly in light snow that I just stay home- and light snow is all we get here. We've tossed around the idea of expensive snow tires but that would be SO expensive because they'd only last one season.

Yes, it fixed the problem. And I never get snow tires here (southern Idaho) because we don't get enough snow to need them. I just have all-season tires. I did it in the winter, after we'd had a few snows and I was sliding all over the place. (I learned to drive in Alaska, so I knew my driving wasn't the problem.) I basically slid into the tire place like I was on ice skates, and drove out doing just fine. The tire guys said it was because the stock tires are "performance," because Mazda is all about the "zoom zoom." I'll take my big ugly tires, thanks!

 

[Jeni-GAcpst]

I got an '08 Grand Touring ) 109,000 miles on the engine. Mazda checked it out and said she looks good.
I'll let you know when we roll 200,000 miles!

 

[teekadog]

Congrats!