This morning, it being the school holidays and me being in charge of the two little Beests, it seemed like a good opportunity to see if the Mazda 5 (or Mazda5 if you must) lives up to its on-paper promise.
I have to say I still don't really know. It was one of those what's-the-point test drives where the salesman drove too fast for ten minutes, waffled a bit about grip and body roll (it does seem to have useful amounts of one and not too much of the other), then let me drive back to the showroom on a route that consisted mostly of two miles of straight, wide 30mph road and about three of 70mph dual carriageway.
Based on that, I can say that the 5 seems perfectly pleasant. The one I had was a 2.0 petrol TS2, which has all the features I really need - although climate control would be nice - and no privacy glass. Forward visibility is good; rearward is OK until you come to reverse leftwards into a parking space, when you realize that the combination of pillars gives you no view at all of the rear offside corner. I had to rely on the usefully big door mirror to tell me that I wasn't about to swipe the 6 in the next space.
It being a rare dry day, I didn't get to try the wipers. They're in a conventional, car-type pattern, which I much prefer to the overlapping MPV pattern.
The 2.0 petrol engine seems on paper like a poor second choice to the diesel, but it actually copes pretty well - very smooth and reasonably lusty, although I had to rev it much harder than I would the diesel. Given a suitable saving on purchase price, I might even consider the petrol as an alternative to the diesel. I didn't drive for long enough at sustained high speed to comment on cruising noise levels, but my impression was that it was a little louder than my Volvo or the Toyota Verso I tried recently. Not intolerable, though.
The 5 has a high-mounted gear lever, similar to the Verso's. It works well enough, but doesn't quite have the delightful precision of the Toyota box. I also found it harder to coordinate with the clutch, although I'm sure this would improve with practice.
I have to say that the 5 seems to ride and handle very well. It has a similar 'planted' feel to the Verso, which I liked very much. If anything, it rides a little more smoothly, while still being easy to position through a corner. I'd want to try it on a much longer route of my own choosing before committing myself. Once I've done that, I'll post some more here.
The other thing that will require a longer trial is the driver's seat. I may not have had it set up quite right, but I wasn't as comfortable as I'd have liked to be. There's really no substitute for a long drive to test a seat, and I won't be buying a 5 (or anything else) until I've had one.
The boys in the back declared themselves quite happy with the space they had and the experience of travelling in the 5. They were in the middle row, pushed right back. With the seats there, the back row was adequate for the six-year-old, who could get his feet under the seat in front, but not for his four-year-old brother, whose feet were stuck in the gap. I may need to borrow an eight-year-old before I decide, to see how useful these seats will be in years to come!
Having decided against the Verso because it doesn't have enough space in the back, this is a crucial point for me. The 5 is 155mm longer than a Verso, and all the extra length seems to be behind the rear wheels. This means that third-row passengers have no more legroom, but there is some useful extra luggage space (enough for a modest day out with all seats in use, unlike the Verso) and the rearmost passengers are that much further from the back bumper.
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