My review of a 2018 Mazda CX-5 as a rear seat passenger

Getting in and out of the rear. The doors open wide. But getting in and out is difficult. Firstly, the rear seats are high. Next, the gap between the rear seats and the B-pillars is not large enough. Though I think the main problem is the size of the door and the placement of the rear seat bench.

Rear seats. Outer passengers sit quite from the door which means that either the middle person struggles or the outer passengers are uncomfortable seating on the hard bolster. There are three individual adjustable headrests however they are not that comfortable to rest my head on though adjustments are easy to make.

My legs have space. I can place them under the front passenger seat. However, the floor under the front passenger seat is not flat meaning only the back half of my foot is touching the floor.

Rear amrest. Features a couple of cup holders with rubber flaps. However the flaps closest to the long slot can be pushed in and out. The other flaps doesn’t show this behaviour. The rear armrest has has a couple of usb ports with a rated total output of 2.1 amps.

Resting my arms. I would like to rest my arms. However, the height of the lower rest spot on the door cars and the height of the rear armrest is different with the rear armrest being lower. Also the lower armrest spot on the door card is too far away from me.

Also, the centre console could be moulded differently to allow middle passengers to rest their foot on the tunnel opposed to resting their foot in the outer passengers foot well.

Both front seats feature seat pockets, however firstly, the metal band is not flat and will be painful when pressed. Also there’s no backing for the back of the seat pocket which means you feel the seat wire frame.

At 420 litres the boot is decently sized and perfectly adequate but in modern world, 500 litres is the unofficial bare minimum especially considering the size and class of vehicle.

Despite the cons, there are pros. It’s quite and relatively comfortable. Also, t the air con is sufficient to cool the entire cabin and the sound quality is sufficient too. I like the large visible gauges but the turn indicators are hidden by the individual gauge hood.

Overall, I’m quite disappointed with the 2nd generation Mazda CX-5. For this size of vehicle, I really expected more.