Why Does This Exist? // 2026 Mazda CX5 Review

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hello people of the world watching new vehicle reviews. Welcome to this, the new 2026 Mazda CX5. If you're like myself, you're probably wondering why there is a CX-5 and a CX-50 when they're both basically the same shape and do the same thing. So, today I'm going to get up in the air, wear a nerd out in tech specs, see how this thing is actually constructed, what makes it different than a CX-50, and then go give it the beans.

[00:00:30]First things first, if you are so inclined to do so, the CX-5 is capable of towing up to,500 lb. There's a little removable plastic cover for a hitch receiver. Got a dual outlet stainless steel muffler. The cutout is quite a bit larger than the tip, though. Look at this piece of muffler. No, literally, it's a piece of muffler. Out back, the CX-5 utilizes an all steel in construction multi-link rear suspension configuration. And that right there is the primary difference between this and a CX50 which is based for the US market.

[00:01:02]This being built and sold in Japan has the far superior multi-link rear suspension that offers better handling characteristics with cast iron knuckles, plastic arrow shields. It's paired with a set of ZFS sourced divorced coil spring rear dampers made in South Korea.

[00:01:19]The rear anti-uway bar is very it's a unique layout and it's mounted above the subframe which measures in at approximately I got look at it up here approximately 19 mm in diameter providing the grip out back for the standard Iactive all-wheel drive system is a clutch-based rear differential unit with a 4.6 to4 final drive ratio. It also incorporates their G vectoring control plus brake based torque vectoring system. Fairly adequate amount of seam sealer. There's a ton above the axle neatly applied. Moving on forward, you can see they utilize hairy cardboard for the underbody cladding. It's not an off-road model, but well, nice heat shielding actually. The 2026 Mazda CX-5, now in its third generation chassis code KM in this premium plus trim you see above, weighs in at approximately 3856 lb. Also got another piece of resonator in the center. Plenty of stamped steel chassis braces. Whoa, it's got blue silicone hangers. That's neat. In the musical department, the exhaust mid pipe, which is stainless in construction like everything else, measures in 60 mm in diameter, a little less than 2 and 1/2 in SAE.

[00:02:48]As far as the transmission is concerned, the CX-5 comes standard with the in-house designed Skyactive drive six-speed automatic transaxle. It is a torque converter and multiplate clutchbased system with a maximum input rating of 461 Nm or 340 pound- feet. It is also paired to the ondemand all-wheel drive system that can send up to 50% available torque to the rear wheels, but normally operates in a 98 to 2% frontto-rear bias. As far as ease of maintenance goes, neat little heat shield, you can see it's fairly tidy up there. The drive shaft going into the power takeoff unit, that massive exhaust manifold up above, but yeah, it's not cluttered. There's not a bunch of hoses and wires. It's just very simple and mechanical. I think a lot of that ease of maintenance comes in the design of the steel front subframe and it's got these weird little golf ball dimples in it. The steering rack you might have just barely got a glimpse of is an electric power assist rack and pinion with a 14.1 to1 ratio 2.75 turns lock to lock. Up front all steel in construction McFersonson strut style suspension configuration with cast iron knuckles just like the rear. You can see the lower control arms have this little rubber bushing attached to it for vibration dampening I would suppose.

[00:04:04]Again, it's paired with those ZF sourced coilover strut assembly front dampers.

[00:04:08]Front anti- sway bar measures in approximately 22 mm and change diameter.

[00:04:14]Under engine cover is hairy cardboard and plastic hybrid plastic up front.

[00:04:19]They do give you a little removable plastic panel with metal hardware for oil changes.

[00:04:26]Time for the braking test. Going behind me. Ready, set, stop.

[00:04:34]All right.

[00:04:35]Mhm.

[00:04:40]That was good. That was good. That was better than I was expecting. Little aggressive on the ABS at first, but solid solid braking for what it is. That braking was just made possible thanks to a single piston caliper with a 328 mm or 12.9 in front rotor. The wheels on this Premium Plus, they are a 19 by7 with a positive 45mimeter offset N key alloy manufactured in Japan wrapped in a set of 225 55 19-in Toyo Open Country HT tires. I don't know about you watching, but I'm kind of over black wheels. I can we have a return to silver? Comment below how you feel about that. Ride height. This thing does have 8.2 in of ground clearance. You got about three foam fingers. Inner fender liners, plastic, easy to clean. Got by LED headlights with LED DRLs and a little red square inside the headlight to make you ask questions. Front-facing cam. You can see behind the grill, it does have active grill shutters that look like plastic lasagna pieces. The same with down below. And this area over here, that is not a functional vent. Camera in the mirror. Kind of surprised they chose piano black for the side skirt area because you can see the texture in the plastic itself. It shows up with piano black rear inner fender liner. What is that? Oh, it's like it's wool pants.

[00:06:01]Does have a built-in plastic splash shield. Out back, another single piston caliper with a 325 mm or 11.8 in rear rotor. Wheel and tire. Same size as you have up front.

[00:06:14]In the name of science, I will now give this thing beans. But first, assessment of bolstering.

[00:06:21]Nope. Since this is a top spec, it has black leather seats with perforation and okay amount of squish. They are heated as well as ventilated, but instead it's baked into the infotainment system.

[00:06:34]However, Mazda has this new thing called HMI, human machine interface. So, it's designed to even be better than reaching for a button. It's designed to not reach at all. You just use your voice to turn stuff on. Hey Google, turn on driver seat ventilation.

[00:06:53]>> Okay, turning on seat fan for the driver.

[00:06:55]>> Hey Google, set the climate control to 69°.

[00:07:00]>> Sorry, I can't control that at the moment. Try again later.

[00:07:04]>> Just when I thought I was like, "All right, this actually works pretty good.

[00:07:07]Not only do you have sweaty pits now, you also have rage to contend with." As far as drive modes go, Mi Drive has been relocated to the steering wheel. I can touch this area and go from normal to off-road or sport. Additionally, I can defeat the traction control. Again, there's no physical button. It's in the screen. Hey, Google, turn off traction control.

[00:07:29]>> Oops, something went wrong.

[00:07:31]>> Just do it myself. As far as manual mode goes, thankfully I have a mechanical lever I can pull down over here, bop it to the left to engage manual mode, where I have some flappy paddles in the back of the steering wheel that turn with it.

[00:07:43]Says off. Weird. Yeah. Give this thing a little assistance and let it eat. Ready, go. All right. Little bit of an aggressive launch.

[00:07:54]Sounds mean. There's some torque management on the shift.

[00:07:58]It sounds pissed.

[00:08:01]That's good.

[00:08:14]You're not going to win any drag races, but it's got passion in the sound behind it. That I like that part. Hood pop.

[00:08:22]Ooh, that's a heavy hood. Jeez, that's a heavy hood. No hood struts either.

[00:08:27]Underneath the hood of the 2026 Mazda CX-5 is the PY-VPS Skyactive G, which is a 2 and a half L all aluminium dual overhead cam naturally aspirated 4-cylinder that produces 187 horsepower at 6,000 RPM and 186 pound- feet of torque at 4,000 RPM, giving this one more horsepower than other Mazdas with the same power plant in it. Take this engine cover off real quick. Get a look underneath here. You can see the air comes in through the front grill down into the air box and then you have a little snorkel tube into the throttle body and then into a plastic intake manifold. The valve cover is also plastic 020 recommendation.

[00:09:09]Alternator just underneath that intake manifold and the AC compressor down below that. As you can see, it's a very spacious engine bay for being a transverse frontwheel drive. Moving to the back of the engine bay, immediately you can see that giant exhaust manifold right there. There's a lot of room to access things. Oh, they didn't paint everything in the back of the engine bay.

[00:09:31]Same thing with underneath the hood.

[00:09:32]You'll notice a little different than the exterior because this is a tri-stage candy paint. It's actually a pretty expensive paint. So, I I get it why they didn't in the engine bay. Engine cover back on. Digging a little bit deeper on this 2488cc banger. It is unders squared at an 89x 100 mm 4 in stroke with an impressive 13:1 compression ratio all thanks to a 4:1 exhaust manifold that is bolted directly to the cylinder head. Part of that Skyactive G technology. It has variable valve timing both intake and exhaust cam cylinder deactivation management as well as this is a timing chain driven engine with direct fuel injection only. You can see it still utilizes a vacuum-based brake booster.

[00:10:17]Wa! Look at the ABS union right here.

[00:10:19]It's like high polished. That's pretty.

[00:10:21]Very easy to get to the coolant hoses for the heater core. Tiny little coolant expansion chamber. There's actually a lot of room down the front side of the engine. Huge cooling fan on the back side of that AC condenser and radiator assembly. Some little plastic trim caps on the sides of the engine bay.

[00:10:37]Mechanically, this thing remains very simple and kind of old school in a good way. But sadly, the turbocharged version of this engine is now discontinued for the CX-5.

[00:10:53]Beans engage.

[00:10:56]I will give it this. That engine sounds great and it doesn't have any fake synthetic noises being piped in. And the manual modes being a manual mode. Nice.

[00:11:06]All right, I'll put it back in auto.

[00:11:09]Already I am noticing since having it fresh in my mind driving a Mazda recently with the torsion beam rear suspension. This does handle better.

[00:11:18]This this is the Mazda driving experience I had familiar in my mind.

[00:11:23]Dipping into this corner.

[00:11:27]There we go. And this is not a light vehicle for what it is. I wanted to turn in even more right there into that corner. It had didn't feel like it was just a rock skipping on a pond. That's what I was looking for. The past couple Mazdas I've reviewed with the torsion beam rear suspension, it just it was missing that feeling. The connection to the road feel. This is This is how a Mazda is supposed to be. The steering is reactive and crisp, too. Good. I'm pleased in the handling department for sure when it comes to the little CX-5.

[00:12:02]It's doing better than I was expecting because this is not an enthusiast vehicle. This is not something you buy to carve canyons in the performance straight line. It's a lot of weight to have to carry for 187 horsepower and 186 poundft of torque. Not winning you over in that department. I go back to manual mode. It's the manual mode on Mazda Skyactive Drive 6-speed auto because it has the multiplate clutch and the smaller torque converter. It's an enjoyable manual mode to use. It's It's not bad. Yeah, it's it's making noise, but it ain't It ain't doing much.

[00:12:41]It's a momentum car.

[00:12:44]Well, it's it's keeping me in the revs, too. It sounds like I'm flying, but it's it's not a fast vehicle. I don't know.

[00:12:52]It's still It's enjoyable. It's enjoyable to drive on a windy road for what it is. Keep that in mind. You get a little unsettled on that bump midc corner. If you're the type of person that can find enjoyment driving anything, you just enjoy driving period, then you'll have fun with this. Now, I do want to little blip on the downshift.

[00:13:20]I'm going to wind it out.

[00:13:26]It will not shift for you. You have to shift. It'll bounce off rev limiter. But as I noticed it, you have to short shift a little bit in manual mode. You can't bring it close to red line because you're just going to bounce off the tack. It It likes to short shift less than what it shows on the gauge. Oh yeah, before I forget, one side note.

[00:13:45]When you turn on the blinker, the sound sounds like the sound you hear in your head when you're chewing almonds. If you were a fan of the Mazda logo, well, it's gone. It now just says the word Mazda in case you don't know how to spell it. Hatch bubble. It's got a little divider accordion. And that's a pretty large area back here. Little plastic latch. Oh, and a tire. It's a giant donut, but it's a Yokohama donut.

[00:14:12]Bose subwoofer in the center. Some deep cavities off to the side to store things. A little power receptacle, old school cigarette lighter style. Handles to fold the seats. The back seat of the CX-5 is huge. Map pockets, two of them.

[00:14:26]I got a mile of leg room right here. I got a mile of headroom. The rear seats are heated with physical buttons to turn them on and off. No robots. Some USBC's, some vents, a little dial. The rear door cards are actually nicer in the back seat than they are in the front seat.

[00:14:44]There's an excellent Oh handle to grab onto, speaker cup holder, and a juice box holder. Got a map light. The rear seats recline. Wa! Look at that.

[00:14:53]It's got a little red thing that pops up with it. Neat. Wait. Oh, they do recline. Speaking of which, there's little ISOIX sandwich points down here.

[00:15:01]We'll fold this down. Oh, that's soft.

[00:15:04]Cup holders. The rear seat cushions are softer than they are up front. The back seat's nice. Because this is a candy paint job, it doesn't have the tint coat on the top and the door jambs. It's slightly different. or it does and they just kind of like misted it in there lightly. The door cards are padded in some locations with soft black leather as is. The dashboard is wrapped in a leather-like substance. Wireless phone charger or a place to teleport key fobs to another dimension. Got a little cup holder cubby. A center console is dual opening from either side. Got some USBC's in there. Got a sunglass holder.

[00:15:41]Oh, it's got a satisfying click when you open it at least and some tension to it.

[00:15:46]I didn't know it was possible to make a rubber floor mat look high-end. It's like scales of some sort. And that's actual brushed aluminium. That is a nice floor mat. Actually found some more buttons. You can turn off your force field and open the rear door down here.

[00:16:00]And there's some blank spaces in case you want to add more. Gone is Mazda's classical dial and buttons to control your infotainment system. As far as the infotainment system goes, Mazda unfortunately fell victim to peer pressure and ditched their somewhat classy looking, nicely integrated wide screen that was on top of the dash in favor of a like a MacBook Pro screen.

[00:16:22]It's huge. It is a touch screen and everything is integrated into it. But wait, what does BB Racing? What the hell? Okay, this is kind of adorable and if you're stuck in a traffic jam, at least it's a way to kill the time. But uh how are you going to do a racing game without a steering wheel or controllers?

[00:16:40]All right. All right, Mazda. This is cute. I'll give you that. This is very cute. There's actually quite a bit of stuff packed into this system. Ambient lights. Color. Well, the vehicle is red.

[00:16:49]So, what? I can't select red. Okay then.

[00:16:53]Pink it is. Ah, but wait, there is physical buttons. Hazard and defrost.

[00:16:58]Thank you Mazda for at least giving us these. Oh, that's I like how that illuminates.

[00:17:03]Turn the station to 341 or don't and I'll just do it myself. Oh, direct tune. As far as the Bose sound system goes, that's it's actually pretty good. Man, this Bose has been doing a good job lately. They weren't really my favorite audio brand, but lately they've been doing a great job in a lot of vehicles, and this is one of them. The gauge cluster is full digital, and it changes with your drive modes that you have selected. Also, falling victim to peer pressure. Mazda got rid of the actual Mazda logo in favor of just spelling it out. The controls are kind of like a directional pad on a video game controller. You can change the style of the layout and the information that is displayed on here. There's a little hunter killer robot attached to the top of the clamshell, making sure you're paying attention before Skynet becomes self-aware. One of the things that made Maza stand out the most in my mind was their interiors. They were one of the top Japanese brands in the US market, I feel, for interior design, almost on the level of Lexus. It felt like a luxury vehicle. And a lot of that had to do with the infotainment system.

[00:18:09]The way the screen was laid out and the dash was classy. The controls, which some people didn't like. I actually liked the little round pie that you used to control it. And it just gave a classy feel to everything. And while they still do use some nice materials in here, I will say that I feel like they moved a little bit backwards with this refresh on the interior. And a lot of that has to do with the screen. And I know they're just giving people what they crave because it's what makes the plants grow. The concept that they had where everything is voice operated. In theory, that could be really good because then you don't ever have to even think to reach for a button. You just say the stuff that you want it to do. And if that system worked flawlessly 100% of the time, I would say, "All right, I get it." Despite being from the state of New Hampshire, I personally don't really have much of an accent because I haven't spent my entire life there. And if you do have a strong accent, I can only imagine how that would work with voice recognition. Hey, Google.

[00:19:10]Oh, you still understood me. Welp.

[00:19:13]Shoot.

[00:19:16]I guess the screen on the dash is going to have to come down to a personal preference thing. There are some people that might actually like it and there's others that don't and would prefer buttons. And I guess that's just for you to decide when you're choosing what vehicle to purchase. Fuel efficiency wise, I mean, it's not the quickest vehicle in the world. So, for having all-wheel drive, it's actually pretty decent. Pricing wise, I feel at the CX-5 you're better off going for one of the lower trim specs. I feel that's where the best value is because when you go up to the upper trim specs like this one, it doesn't really have as much of a luxury feel inside anymore and it still feels kind of more like a good economy vehicle. So, I think that's where it's best suited is as a good economy vehicle. The question most people are going to ask and probably the bulk of you watching this review to begin with is CX-5 or CX-50, which is the better of the two vehicles? And that's a really tough one to answer and it depends on what's more important to you. If you're looking for a vehicle that is a Japanese car built in Japan, CX-5. If you want something that has better handling characteristics, CX-5 cuz the multi-link rear end versus the torsion beam in the CX-50. If you want an off-road model or the turbocharged engine, then the CX-50.

[00:20:32]So, yeah, this is definitely a preference type of vehicle. Depends on what you're looking for.

[00:20:46]It is now time to give the new Mazda CX-5 some scores. Starting with the bean score, the assessment of feeling you get in your gut.

[00:20:53]What do you give the beans? And it's getting a rating of Next is the cookie score. The assessment of value. And since this is as loaded as you can get one of these things at about $40,000, it gets a rating of followed by the toaster score, the negative assessment on how much of a disposable appliance vehicle is. And it earns a rating of this was kind of difficult to assess because of the fact that it seems like they were leaning more appliancy, tech heavy with a giant tablet on the dash, but I understand the voice control concept and then mechanically it's still simple as it's been for a while now. So, all right.

[00:21:31]Next is the wrench score, assessment of ease of maintenance, and it earns a rating of followed by the squid score, assessment of handling, and earns a rating of And lastly is the Penguin Score, the assessment on how much I personally like a vehicle. And the CX-5 gets a rating of Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this review. I'll see you soon with another.

[00:21:51]Bye. This video is sponsored by me in my very own detailing product line, RoboBubble, made in the USA. This car got some sap on it from being parked under a tree. We're getting into sap season and as you can see got some mosquite sap on the back glass of this DRZ. So I'm going to use some of my you know bug and tar remover. Let that sit for a sec. Kind of man that tree really just puked all over the glass. Use generous amounts of the product. Just kind of blot it. You don't want to rub hard. It's not that type of a situation.

[00:22:24]Just the objective is to dissolve the sap, not try to rub it off. Pretty much destroyed this microfiber, but rather that than be on the car. Use some of my glass cleaner, which I'm almost out of cuz I actually use my own stuff, and go over that area, remove the residue from the, you know, and the sap.

[00:22:46]Saturate, let it kind of soak for a sec, then blot it.

[00:22:54]And the sap is gone. Now I'm going to follow up with my quickie. This will actually protect the paint because it is a quick wax. Go over the areas. Remove the residue from the you know there.

[00:23:09]Just like that. Nice and clean. Subaru, I'll send you my invoice.

[00:23:13]works good, right?

[00:23:14]works good.