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Today when trying to get into my garage my 2016 cx5 and had the hardest time. The rear tires were not turning just the front. So the front tires were just spinning. There was a ton of ice and snow on the front of my car could this impact some of the senors that are supposed to help the car decide to go into awd? I was so disappointed and now I’m scared of the cars performance in snow.
Today when trying to get into my garage my 2016 cx5 and had the hardest time. The rear tires were not turning just the front. So the front tires were just spinning. There was a ton of ice and snow on the front of my car could this impact some of the senors that are supposed to help the car decide to go into awd? I was so disappointed and now I’m scared of the cars performance in snow.
I have a 2016 and have never had a problem in the snow. If you use the parking brakes it's possible they froze. Have the dealer look at the car and see if anything needs repair. By the way, your vehicle is always in AWD, I have found it helpful to turn off the traction control in some situations, it can actually work against you trying to get moving in slippery conditions.
I have a 2016 and have never had a problem in the snow. If you use the parking brakes it's possible they froze. Have the dealer look at the car and see if anything needs repair. By the way, your vehicle is always in AWD, I have found it helpful to turn off the traction control in some situations, it can actually work against you trying to get moving in slippery conditions.
first thanks for the reply. I was actually trying to get it into the garage after driving around 50 min. My neighborhoods snow is thicker than main streets. I noticed a ton of ice on the front of my car I guess from driving? And I was reading that this car isn’t always awd. It’s i-activ? So only comes on when the sensors thinks it’s needed but is otherwise in fwd for fuel economy? Idk but it def was not going anywhere as all 4 wheels were not trying. I found a YouTube vid of a test drive on hill climbing on a dry grass/dirt same thing and Mazda came back saying they added features to the 2017 to help. Which doesn’t help me with my 2016
If the system is working correctly you should have at least spun one of the rear wheels - it may be the front and rear differential are open design so one wheel may spin at each axle. The way it is supposed to work: if you have zero traction in the front up to 50% of engine power is forced the the rear axle.
Is it possible that you had one wheel at each axle spinning?.
What I know about AWD systems in general:
- AWD systems are front or rear biased meaning the front or rear gets most of the engine power under normal circumstances.
- CX-5 AWD is definitely front drive biased - but up to 50% of power is sent to the rear using electronic controls when conditions require it
- However, both the front and rear axle differential may be open type differentials so 1 tire at each axle may be getting all the power when you are on ice (zero traction)
- There is no 4WD low option that locks the front and rear together so that some power is provided to both the front and rear axles
Last edited by davmac; 02-12-2019 at 04:45 PM.
Reason: Learned more about skyactiv awd
I have a 2016 and have never had a problem in the snow. If you use the parking brakes it's possible they froze. Have the dealer look at the car and see if anything needs repair. By the way, your vehicle is always in AWD, I have found it helpful to turn off the traction control in some situations, it can actually work against you trying to get moving in slippery conditions.
You are on to something - or maybe you already read the linked article,
Check out the link: It will help to turn off traction control to get up that super slippery driveway.
FYI Mazda's AWD system is 100% FWD until it sense front wheel slip, it then energises a clutch on the rear diff engaging drive to the rear diff & rear wheels.
Well the marketing literature claim is 98% fwd under ideal conditions
The system is always AWD and tries to predict when the rear axle is needed- so you don’t really know how much power is going to the rear. The nice thing is that with an electric controlled clutch some power is guaranteed to be sent to the rear when it is needed.
A small trick that can be very useful from time to time: if you find yourself stuck in icy conditions and you have a manual parking brake, pull the brake 1 click. Just to engage the brake a little. This will stop the wheel that has no traction at all and it will act as a limited slip diff.
If you have an electric parking brake, you can try the same with the brake pedal, but on a manual car this is very tricky. On my 2012 CX-5 this has saved me already a couple of times, especially when trying to move on an uphill intersection.
02-11-2019 | 11:09 PM
I activ awd didn’t kick in
