2023 Mazda CX-5 2.5 S POV Test Drive

How does the 2023 Mazda CX-5 drive? Is the 2023 Mazda CX-5 fast enough? How Does the Mazda CX-5 handle? We find out today with me POV test drive of this 2023 Mazda CX-5 2.5 S!

What is up ladies and gentlemen we are currently test driving a 2023 mazda cx-5 2.5 s this is the base model mazda cx-5 for 2023 2.5 liter engine 187 horsepower all-wheel drive is standard six-speed automatic is standard and i’ll just come out and say it right at the top out of all of the compact sport utility vehicles that i’ve driven usual suspects honda crv ford

Edge rav4 subaru forester this is the nicest driving one um as far as the chassis refinement the steering feel the handling even the refinement of the four-cylinder engine i would say that as far as a driver’s car this is the nicest one in the class in the mainstream compact suv class obviously if you get into your bmw x3s with turbocharged six cylinder engines

Or porsche mccanns that’s a little bit of a different kettle of fish but those cars are also far more expensive than this one the msrp on this exact car that i’m driving is 28 570 dollars that includes destination charge and a premium up charge for the metallic white paint um and as far as value goes that’s pretty tough to beat and what impresses me most about

Driving this car is that it really does feel like it was built from the ground up to be a good driving car like that was kind of what they focused on it’s a little smaller as far as both passenger space and cargo space than most of the other vehicles in the class but that probably contributes to how nice it is to drive um they didn’t just take a car that drove

Okay and put stiffer shocks on it it’s it’s systemic the whole car was built to feel good on the road and it does uh they definitely succeeded if that was their goal and it certainly feels like it was because car sure feels nice to drive there’s a reason why car and driver and everybody else ranks it so highly bike lane closed construction we’ll just go ahead

And turn around the ride is comfortable obviously you do feel the road a little bit more than in some of its competitors um but i find it to be a good trade-off you do get a nice growl out of the four-cylinder engine i find the engine to be very smooth and refined um it is available with a turbo this is not the turbo i don’t even know if i recommend the turbo

Um i have driven the 2.5 liter turbo engine in a mazda 3. to me it makes more sense in that car because that’s kind of like a undercover hot hatchback i don’t really feel like suvs need tons and tons of power and i think that this one has enough power for what most people would do with it if i had a criticism as far as driveline or anything else on this car it’s

That it only has a six-speed automatic transmission and most of its competitors at this point have more gears um that does hurt acceleration a little bit it also hurts fuel economy a little bit the car would do a little bit better with an 8-speed automatic some cars have as many as 10 speeds and then of course you got your cvts i’m a big fan of that zf 8hp eight

Speed that a lot of companies use if they could throw that in this that would definitely improve the experience but that’s really the only criticism i have and it’s not a major criticism because it doesn’t hurt the car that much that is why if you’re if you’re cross shopping this with other models that’s why the cx-5 has a little bit lower fuel economy ratings

Than other vehicles in its class it is because of the transmission i did do a real world fuel economy test on it and it did a little bit better than the epa rating that video will be up eventually and when it is i’ll put a link to it in the description but um so it really doesn’t hurt the overall package that much but i drive so many different new cars that when i

Accelerate like when i kind of turned around and it accelerated a little bit out of there i can feel the transmission holding the gears longer than i expect just because most new cars have two or even four more gears if they have torque converter transmissions then this one does so they just snap through the shifts faster because the gears are a little bit narrower

Because there’s more of them so but it’s a relatively minor complaint and it’s the rest of the package is worth the trade-off because the transmission does its job fine the shifts are smooth as far as i could tell it’s a relatively reliable transmission so there’s no it’s not really an achilles heel it’s just sort of a slight annoyance and the fact the matter is

Mazda is a smaller automaker and they have limited resources i mean everybody has limited resources to one extent or another so it’s a little bit harder for them maybe to go you know get a transmission with more gears this is what they have and it works well so they’re using it and i like what they’re doing mazda is differentiating themself from its competitors

And i like that and i think that’s a good thing and you know the car is a little bit smaller but it drives nicer the quality is very good on these cars um as you can hear not a lot of squeaks or rattles none to speak of really and this is uh a brand new 2023 model so you wouldn’t expect any squeaks or rattles but it does feel very very solid um similar comment

On the 2022 mazda 3 that i drove it felt very similar in that regard a lot of features for the money on this one and it does feel nice to drive if you can live with the space i think maybe that’s the biggest drawback on a car like this but you know not everybody needs a huge car if you don’t need maximum amount of passenger room if you don’t need maximum cargo room

Um well quite frankly i might even point you towards a mazda 3 because that drives even nicer just because it’s lower to the ground but you know if you can live with the size this is a very compelling choice and and above and beyond the transmission i think that it’s the smaller size that might put people off on one of these when they’re comparing cargo room and

Passenger room um but if you can live with that trade-off and you want a car that’s nice to drive this is well worth it it feels like a premium product it feels nicer a lot nicer really than the msrp would suggest and you know 28 570 is what in the world is going on here this guy’s care hauling extra seats in his convertible i love it make the best use of that

Convertible cargo hauling ability um 28 570 is a lot of money but based on inflation it’s not as much money as it used to be but and especially in the new suv game 28.5 ain’t much and um this car is worth every bit of it that’s 70 miles an hour on a uh not imperfect road let’s say that’s 60 miles an hour on a slightly better road a little bit of wind noise

But not much to speak of relatively quiet cabin we’ll take it out on the freeway and see how it does right into the natural habitat of the mazda cx-5 burning up the freeway now i’m not really burning it up more like going with the flow of traffic 65 miles an hour that is a uh what do you want to call it refinement check for you good visibility one feature

That did kind of surprise me on this car even on a base model for the 2023s you do get blind spot monitoring as a standard equipment that’s not an option on a cx-5 that is a very nice feature to have a lot of auto manufacturers do charge extra for the blind spot monitoring with the rear cross traffic alert that is going to be standard on your cx-5 definitely has

The best steering feel of almost any new car at this price point that i’ve driven lately i think the last car i reviewed was a camry a toyota camry which is in a different class and obviously toyota’s not as sporty of a um automaker as mazda is but i was surprised it was a camry sc which does have the sport suspension that car actually handled quite well but the

Steering feel wasn’t that great this one kind of has it all oh this is this is really and it’s crazy that it would be in a little suv but this is the kind of car that you would go drive just for the fun of it just like it’s enjoyable to drive i want to go further in it and i can’t really say that about a lot of the cars that i test drive these days man that’s

Pretty much the highest compliment that i can give this car as far as a test drive video goes i want to drive it more that’s how good it is so if you’re looking for an suv and you don’t need a big one and you want something that is good to drive you got to put the cx-5 near the top of the list because it certainly belongs there and that’s about all i got i did

A full review of it there’s a link to that somewhere description comments i don’t know anyway thanks for watching like subscribe comment have a nice day bye bye

Transcribed from video
2023 Mazda CX-5 2.5 S POV Test Drive By Dietrich’s Car Channel