FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2018 MAZDA CX-5

The floor of the 2018 CX-5 boot is nicely carpeted and even, which is great for an emergency bum change, and the floor level is nice and high so you are not bending down into it. The spare wheel is under the floor, so there is not an enormous amount of hidden underfloor storage apart from two little compartments one of either side of the boot. They are plastic lined so you can put wet or dirty items in them.

There are levers in the boot for putting the rear seats down, there is the option for bringing them down 60/40 or bringing the central seat forward on its own, which is another good feature.

If I could give a prize for best cargo blind, the Mazda CX-5 would win!! It attaches to the boot door so that when you open the boot the cargo blind goes up with it, stopping the problem of it hanging down in the boot while you are trying to load and unload things.

The gap between the rear seats and the cargo blind is covered with sprung plastic flaps that move down when you recline the seats so the gap is always covered. Also, when you need to post a top tether strap through to the boot, you can post it through the plastic flaps! Genius! I have seen so many dreadful methods of covering this area of the boot and this is definitely the best option I have tested.

The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.

Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.

I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.

When the boot of the 2018 Mazda CX-5 is empty I could fit 13 shopping bags in it.

The Mountain Buggy Duet would only fit widthways in the boot I could not get the door to close with it lengthways. With the Mountain Buggy Duet in the boot, I could get three shopping bags in alongside it.

The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle pram would also only fit in the boot widthways, I could fit five shopping bags in alongside it.

The Mountain Buggy Nano stroller fitted upright in the boot of the CX-5, which was fantastic, with 11 shopping bags around it.

Inside the front of the CX-5, there are two cup holders in the central console, and they were a good size for a travel or disposable coffee cup, or a 600ml water bottle. My large refillable water bottle fitted in there nicely too.

The door pockets in the front of the CX-5 are nice and large, so they will hold a large refillable water bottle and I found the huge space behind it would hold my wallet. But was pretty useless for storing anything else as it is too shallow!

The glove box of the CX-5 is rather small. It is nicely felt-lined so anything in there won’t rattle; I could only fit my wallet in there with the manual.

In front of the gear lever is a large rubber-lined well big enough for a large smartphone and there is a 12V socket here too.

The two front USB sockets are situated in the central console storage box, alongside another 12V socket, HDMI socket and AUX socket. The storage box is a decent size, with a removable tray in the top that is useful for a phone, and it is also felt lined. The lid doubles as your armrest.

In the ceiling, there is a glasses case which is felt lined so you don’t damage your lenses.

The rear passengers have map pockets on the back of both front seats, which are solid and large enough to completely conceal an iPad. Good for when you park up somewhere.

All the doors have good sized rubber-lined wells in them as handles, which are a great BabyDrive feature as I find them really useful for popping whatever my daughter has in her hands in while I buckle her up, or to put the car keys in.

The door bins are much smaller in the back; nothing bigger than a 600ml water bottle or Pigeon baby bottle fitted.

The central seat back has a fold-down armrest containing two cup holders that are a good size like the front ones and there is also a lidded section with two USB sockets to charge and store two mobile phones.

The parking sensors in the CX-5 are actually very BabyDrive friendly! By the driver's right knee is a panel of buttons where you can turn the parking sensors on and off, the great thing about this being that if you turn them off, they are off for every journey until you turn them back on again. This is a great feature in all Mazdas and I just had them turned off the whole week we were driving the CX-5, as we were doing a lot in-carcar day naps at the time that I didn’t want disturbed! The reversing camera is still active, just not the sensors and noise!

There is also a button here for the cameras so you can change to the view of the left side kerb when you are parking.

The auto engine cut out switch is on the same control panel and it’s called i-stop in the Mazda CX-5.

The lane departure warning in the Mazda CX-5 is just a vibration in the steering wheel and there is no beeping accompanying it, which is great for not disturbing the little passengers. Also, the CX-5 is very good at driving itself and keeping within the lanes too!

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

The indicator volume in the CX-5 is not adjustable, but it is quite a mild sound so I didn’t find it affected my daughter while she was sleeping.

There is no Apple Car Play or Android Auto in the CX-5 and I found the inbuilt sat-nav difficult to navigate and use. Once I could get it going to a location, the directions showed in the head up display, which was useful. The sat-nav voice was off when I started testing the car and I found it very difficult to find a way to turn it back on!!

Both the doors and windows of the CX-5 open and close with a considerable clunk, which I can vouch for as being baby waking in volume, especially the doors!!

Road and engine noise are good in the CX-5. There are times up hill when you hear the engine working, or occasionally when it hasn’t changed gear you hear the engine revving but nothing that would disturb passengers.

The seatbelt removal alarm goes off if any seatbelts are removed whilst driving and a lit warning also comes up on your digital display as well as on a panel on the dashboard, to tell you if it’s a rear passenger seatbelt.

The CX-5 will not let you drive the car if the boot door is open, it will not release the parking brake.

The 2018 Mazda CX-5 is a five-seater with Iso Fix in the two outer rear seats. The Iso Fix points are within slits in the leather seat upholstery, which I found, made it slightly trickier to attach the connectors to as you are negotiating the leather and it’s just not as visible as when they are within plastic guides. Over time, the leather will become worn and creased around the connectors too.

There are top tether points on the backrests of all three rear seats, which I found were most easily accessible through the boot or by bringing the individual seat backs forward.

A fantastic feature I discovered whilst installing the child seats is the flaps of plastic that fills the gap between the retractable cargo blind in the boot and the seat backs. They are sprung so you can press them down to post the top tether straps through to the boot.

I was pleasantly surprised to find I could fit three child seats across the back row, a rear facing Mountain Buggy Protect infant capsule and a Britax Unity infant capsule either side of a Britax Maxi Guard Pro booster seat. I did have to use the seatbelts rather than the ISO Fix for the capsules so that I could move them further out towards the edges of the seat base, but if you had twins for example and an older child it could work.

Posting bub into their seats from outside the car is quite good for forward-facing seats because the CX-5's doors open out really wide. However, for rear-facing seats the door frame has a sharp diagonal angle at the corner where you would be posting bub in, making it actually quite difficult to get them in.

From inside you don’t have this problem and I found it fine getting bub in and out of the car seats.

Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!

I liked the fact that the front passenger seat folds and slides really far forward so you can step through for getting into the central rear seat when you have child seats fitted in both the outer ones. At 162cm I could easily fit through the gap this feature created.

With only one child seat installed, there is plenty of room for feeding bub in the back.

The rear seats recline slightly as well and the seat bases are a good horizontal angle for installing child seats but the back seats have perforated central panels to match the front ones, which makes it very hard to keep them clean with children’s mess, sand, spills and crumbs.

The front seats of the 2018 Mazda CX-5 are very comfortable and in the top spec version we drove, they had electric adjustment controls on the sides. The seats are well padded and firm but I could not wear a ponytail because of the headrest shape!

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

The seats are black leather with perforated panels in the centres for the heating. They have quite a bit of stitch and seam detailing, which will make keeping them clean with children harder as these things all trap crumbs and spills.

In the second row, the seats are comfortable too, and like the front ones they are well-padded and firm but also have the same perforations and stitching detail.

The rear seats do not slide and adjust for legroom. Legroom is quite tight in the CX-5. With a rear-facing capsule installed in both rear outer seats, there is 19 cm of knee room in the front seats, meaning a 182cm driver could only just fit and probably wouldn’t want to drive in that position all the time.

The steering wheel is fully adjustable in/out and up/down, which is a good thing as there not a lot of leg room in the CX-5 so you need to be able to move the steering wheel and allow taller drivers to feel less cramped.

The cruise control buttons are on the right-hand side of the steering wheel They are simple to use and the cruise control has actually been relatively accurate and kept to the set speeds quite well on both fast, straight roads and on slower undulating roads. It is not as accurate as some I have driven but definitely not the worst!

The digital display in front of the steering wheel shows the distance to empty for the fuel, which I find fantastic and wouldn’t want to be without!

The distance to empty display becomes extra important as a mum because getting fuel with a baby is a whole new world of difficult. If they are screaming in the car you definitely do not want your journey prolonged with a fuel stop! If they are asleep the turning off of the engine, doors opening and locking and unlocking, then re-opening the doors and closing, starting the engine again, beepers going off because you haven’t got your seatbelt on when you start the car or because you blink in the wrong direction, do you take them out of the car when you go in to pay? If you do will you get them back in the seat again or will they have a complete meltdown and you’ll be stuck on the fuel station forecourt with a screaming baby!! Hopefully you are starting to gather the anxiety that what was once a simple fuel stop can be for a mum!!!!

For this reason the distance to empty display can let you know if you have enough fuel to make it home with bub and then go out and get fuel another time when you will not have to take bub with you.

There are four identically sized air-con vents across the front dashboard; two in the centre and one at either end. For the rear passengers, there are two in the back of the central console storage box that are reachable by the driver too.

The air-con controls are situated near the bottom of the dashboard just above the gear lever. I found the controls over-complicated to look at and use, feeling the need to double check what I was pressing and they are just a bit of a jumble and not laid out in the most user-friendly way. There were dual climate control and heated seats in the fhigh-spec CX-5 we drove, too.

The air con is quite effective in the CX-5, but I found that even on the lowest fan speed it seemed a little harsh and I felt like I needed an extra lower fan setting so as not to feel like I was being frozen when the airflow was on me.

Front visibility for the driver in the 2018 CX-5 was really impaired on both sides by the door mirrors and front pillars. This was especially bad at roundabouts or junctions because the blind spots easily hide people and cars so you can’t see they are there.

In contrast, the rear side windows are good for the driver to see out of when you are changing lanes even with rear-facing child seats installed. The rear seats seem to sit very low so you have vision out of the whole windows but the rear passengers have less visibility out of the windows as a result.

With child seats installed in all three rear seats, visibility out of the rear windscreen is very limited so you need to rely on the reversing camera.

One thing that helps with this is that you do know where the CX-5 ends. It’s not a long car that has inches of bumper or boot that you can’t see in your mirrors. The CX-5 tends to end where you can visibly see it so even if visibility when manoeuvring is impaired, you can see when to stop. Visibility when parking is affected by the rear windows and not being able to see out when headrests are up and child seats are installed means you really do have to rely on the rear camera.

One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread when we get big cars or Utes as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, but the Mazda CX-5 although only a mid sized SUV was tricky to reverse park too!

For rear-facing passengers in the back, the windows are nice and large there are little triangular third windows along the side that help to let a bit more light into the car. The windows are quite deep too, but it does feel like the rear seats sit quite low down.

In the front, both passengers have lit vanity mirrors in their sun visors. The visors are not extendable though.

The interior lights in the front are press on lights either side of the sunroof control in the ceiling. The two rear lights are also press on and situated in the ceiling just behind the sunroof and front seats. They are easily reachable while you are driving, which is a fantastic BabyDrive feature.

I have found Tulsi does not like travelling in the dark in the car so if it gets dark whilst travelling then I reach back and turn the interior light on for her. So it’s really important for me that I can reach the rear ceiling light.

Also if I am traveling home and it is getting near to bed time and I DEFINITELY DON’T want her to fall asleep in the car as even a 5minute nap in the car means bed time is all over!!!! I lean back and pop the light on so it’s not dark and try to keep her awake!! Along with screaming/singing at the top of my voice!!!

It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.

I have found the CX-5 a nice compact little car to drive around town. You can sit a little higher on the road, being an SUV, and it is nimble and easy to manoeuvre. I did find it a little lurchy at times and it doesn’t enjoy steep hills at low speed. Apart from that, it is a basic and simple little car that doesn’t feel basic to drive.

There are handles in the ceiling above all the doors; in the back, they are useful for hanging a baby toy from but found they were slightly too far forward and that the toy hung more over the hood of the seat rather than in front of bub.

There are two 12V sockets in the front, one in front of the gear lever and the other in the central console storage box.

Generally, the interior of the Mazda CX-5 is quite pleasant, the doors have a nice black leather panelling and the silver used across the dash is nice. The faux wood plastic panels are not too offensive either. They have used grey stitch detail on the dash and tops of the doors and brown stitch detail on the seats and lower doors, which offends the pre-child designer in me on a continuity level!!

The model we drove was the top spec of the range. The interior definitely didn’t feel like anything special?! It is just practical, neat and tidy car.

All these surfaces would wipe clean easily too, although there were some strange blotchy patches on the dashboard that I hope were caused by some cleaning products rather than sun damage for such a young vehicle.

There are floor mats in the front and back of the CX-5 with metal corner details on them.

The 2018 CX-5 we drove does have keyless entry and a powered tailgate and though I did find the 2018 CX-5 locks automatically when you get out with the keys, I found it happened a little too quickly, so I was having to unlock the car again just to get my daughter out of her seat!

The tailgate makes quite a loud initial opening and closing beep, but at least it does not continue for the entire time the boot is opening and closing!