Hello,
I am online browsing for my next vehicle and the CX 5 is high on my list to go see but first can anyone tell me if you have to move the front seats forward a bit to have the rear seats fold down fully? I saw the video below where it appears the fronts seats are preventing the rears from fully folding with the fronts in their current position. I am 5'9" and don't sit that close to the steering wheel.
https://www.cars.com/articles/2017-m...1420692435768/

 

One of the great mysteries of "Mazdadom" is why the company uses ridiculously outsized rear passenger headrests on the outboard positions of the rear seat on past and present US spec CX-5s. Judging from your video, it appears the 2017s use a slightly smaller style than earlier models, but as you noted, they do prevent the rear seats from folding unless you remove them or move the front seats all the way forward. There is a fix, and that is to swap them out for JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) headrests which are lower profile and allow dropping the rear seat backs with clearance to spare. These parts are genuine Mazda, match your interior perfectly and are available from a couple of online sources They generally run about $200 for a pair. Lots of us CX-5 "veterans" have made the switch.

 

Thanks for the tip, I will keep that in mind.

 

The headrests are easily removable (a button on each side and they slide right out). I removed mine almost from the day I bought it simply because they annoyed me in the corners of my rear view mirror. If you put kids in the back, they don't need them as the seats are high enough as it is. However if you like them and want to keep them in, then you can simply remove them (2 seconds) drop them on the floor in front of the back seats when you need to fold the seat flat and pop them right back in when you put the seat back up.

 

great, if I do remove the headrest when putting the rear seat down will that be sufficient room even with the front seat most of the way back or will I still have to slide the front seat a bit forward still?

 

It's the rear seat headrest that interferes with the front seat back, not the rear seatback. So yes (see my post above).

 

You shouldn't have any problem sliding the front seat all the way back with the rear seat headrests removed and the rear seats folded down. You can easily test it out when you go test drive the car. Literally takes two seconds to remove each headrest, push button in and pull headrest out. Pretty standard on most cars, front or back seats.

 

I respectfully beg to differ that having to remove rear headrests is “pretty standard on most cars”. Many manufacturers use low profile rear headrests (just as Mazda does in other markets!) to avoid this very thing. Why Mazda has not corrected this situation through two generations of CX-5s is anyone’s guess.