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Mazda 5 (2010- ) car review

22/12/10

Price£18,895
We like...Sliding doors; superb ride
We don't...Breathless engine

Mazda’s worked a trick or two with its latest 5. Making a seven-seater look dramatic and interesting is no small challenge. When all the demands of space and usefulness demand what’ll be pretty much a box on wheels, it’s quite something that looks different: apart from the pack.

The front is raked, the view out through that big ‘screen car like, while three ridges run across its flanks to distract the eye from what would otherwise look a hefty slab of metal. It’s clever.

Only around the rear does the car look a little heavy and awkward. But since the designers also had to work around the car’s sliding rear doors, that’s forgivable. And a word about those doors. They’re carried over from the previous Mazda 5 and they’re great. Better than the side openers you’ll find on the 5’s main rivals because they free more space to enter and exit, especially if you’re heading to or from the rearmost seats. They’ve even got a damper control to prevent them from pinching fingers.

Mazda 5 Mazda 5 Like many others of its size, the back two seats are fine for kids but here there set too low to keep grown-ups comfy for long, not least because they feel too slimly padded. Those in the front and mid rows are much better looked after, except that the centre mid chair is made narrow so that it can be folded away until needed. This leaves those in the outer places with ample elbow room and arm rests. You wouldn’t want to spend long perched on that centre seat, though. All the seats fold flat to free as much space as in a small van.

One drawback of those sliding doors is that they can’t offer storage pockets on their inners. Nor does the ‘5’ offer storage boxes let into the floor as you’d find in a Volkswagen Touran. There is, however, a big space beneath the left and right mid-row seats while a big basket for odds and ends can be swung out to take the place of the mid-row centre seat.

Mazda 5 Mazda 5 The car’s as well kitted out as you’d want for its price – climate controlled air conditioning, a full suite of safety aids and a decent stereo come as standard – but the plastics used in some places are hard and look cheap. It’s also black throughout, enlivened only by the odd flash or silver or chrome.

You don’t expect such a passenger-focused car to do much to please its driver but this one can. The steering is well weighted and accurate, the view out is super and the way it rides is just…lovely. It manages a fine balance between comfort and tautness, smothering even busted-up tarmac while staying under control even if you heel into a bend quicker that perhaps you’d intended.

The engine here is new – a 2.0-litre petrol unit equipped with ‘i-stop’ – Mazda’s version of the fuel scrimping start-stop systems appearing on cars everywhere. This duly stopped and re-started on cue but even so the car’s 27.6mpg for us over 200 miles of mixed driving was disappointing. And the engine feels short on power, as if it is pegged back to lower its CO2 emissions figure. It’s more like a 1.6 than a 2.0 and once you’ve five aboard, it struggles.

Once wound up to speed, though, it is quiet, making the 5 a restful and refined place to while away long motorway trips.
Should you buy one? Well, it’s good and those sliding doors are a boon. But it’s up against talented rivals: VW’s newly refreshed Touran and the new seven-seat Ford C-Max, to name but two. For us, its breathless engine might just raise a concern too many.