I love my Mazda 5, but there are a few little things that I don't care for. Lets make a list so Mazda can fix it on the 2010 or 11 model.

- Rear Vents: They should put out the same air as the controls are set to, not just outside air.
- Rear Vent Button: I like that they thought to do this, but we find it gets bumped all the time
- Front Panel Controls for Rear Vents, Defrost, AMB are awkward to get to. Find I have to look away from the road for too long to find the right button.
- Stereo is way under powered, and cheap.
- Stereo does not support MP3's. Come on Mazda, its a 2008 model
- Engine is a little underpowered, could use an extra 20bhp
- Seats don't go back far enough. I am 6'5" and its a tight fit - if I could move the seat back just 1 more inch, it would make all the difference in the world. Power seats would be nice too.
- Auto wipers dont always come on when the wind shield is wet and you first turn the car on. I find I have to manually turn them on once, then they are fine after that in auto mode.
- My last car had a hydrolic hood support, rather than the stick thing you have to do manually. Wish Mazda had used the hydrolic option here. (Wonder if I could customize that?)
- No driver reachable control for lights in the cabin by back seats
- Would love heated mirrors
- Would love heated seats without having to upgrade to leather
- have to hid the lock button twice to hear the car beep. Should just beep on the first try. The beep is good as it lets you know that the doors are in fact locked. If you leave a door open, and lock it, you cant tell if the car is secure or not, need to hit it twice. Will beep only if all doors are closed etc, but why the second button click?
- Passenger side floor mat - should secure to the floor, always gets pushed up towards the firewall.
- Not sure the engine could support a 6spd manual, but sometimes at 120+ (3000rpm+) on the highway, that 6th gear would be nice.
- Car is always messy, wife leaves all kinds of junk in the back, shoes, baby clothes, strollers etc. Also, she never washes it, I always have to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I love this vehicle, but as any car, it has its little things that I wish I could change. All in all I recommend this car, but hope that a future model has these items changed

 

Mine would be that;
at 5ft 4 I have to have the seat pulled right forward but then when I get in and out of the car my knees bash on the steering column.
Why doesnt my electric window slide all the way down with one touch of the button

 

Drivers side window button is a two stage button. Push it part way, and it only goes while you push it, push it all the way, and the window will go all the way down if you let go. It only works on that one window. You have to hold down for "up" on all windows, and hold down for "down" on all other windows.

(that is at least the case with mine (08 in Canada))

 

Actually, in Norway heated mirrors and heated seats (non-leather) are standard equipment. I guess Canada is about as cold as Norway in the winter...

To get a 6-speed manual, I guess you have to buy a diesel.

 

This is a feature that seems to regularly disappear. In the manual there is a whole chapter on Electric Window operation, options and programming there-of!!

I have had to re-program my driver's door window for one-touch operation several times. It's just a matter of finding the section in the book. There seems to be a whole computer somewhere in the car just looking after making windows go up and down!
Hope you can sort it out.

Dave.

 

Heated Seats and Mirrors Standard in Norway? No fair!

I never used to think of those options as useful or desired, until we had our last car which had both, and I fell totally in love with them. Man - maybe I should have gone leather to get the heated seats - not sure if heated mirrors are available with any package here in Canada - I think we may be a bit warmer than Norway on average, but not totally sure about your climate KLN66.

Where I am specifically we get around -5C at the coldest (which occasional dips to -10C or so, and in the summer seldom break 30C (usually in the low to mid 20's C in the summer)

 

Sounds like you have about the same climate as I have. As I´m writing, the temperature is -8. The coldest we have in the part of Norway where I live (south-east) is around -25C, but that doesn´t happen very often. Usually the temperature is around 0 to -5C in the winter, and 15-25 in the summer.

 

A couple of comments to make.

Hydraulic struts: I know redline and a couple of other companies make aftermarket ones for the 3, so they may be available for the 5. They're something I'd like to add but just can't justify spending the money on them.

Heated Mirrors: In the US they're available only on the GT trim, however the wiring is present up to where the car's wiring plugs into the mirror. If you add the heated glass you just need to run wiring from the glass to the mirror side of the plug, and insert two new pins in the harness to mate up with the car's wiring. I did this on my 3 last winter and had each side done in about 30 minutes. I wired up another couple of cars this winter and was down to about 15 minutes per side. For the 3 the glass is ~$40/side, however for the 5 it's only ~$24/side.... I don't know why the 5's mirrors are cheaper since they're actually larger but oh well. I'll be installing these in my father's new 5 sometime in the next month. If you want details on the install check out my walkthrough on M3F. The glass comes on with the rear defroster, and times out with it as well, so there aren't any extra switches to install.

Heated Seats: There are tons of aftermarket heated seat kits available, so if you really want them you can get them. Most run around $75/side, and really you can just do the driver's seat if there's generally only one person in the car. You could also do the back seats if you really wanted. The aftermarket heaters are also better because you can get them with multi-setting swtiches vs. the ON/OFF of the OEM ones.

Passenger floor mat: This is a common problem on the 3 as well, and I can't imagine why Mazda didn't plan for this. As a solution some 3 owners have done the following. Bought a second floor hook from Mazda (only a couple dollars IIRC) and installed on the passenger's side, bought a package of large metal grommets and a grommet punch. Then they put a grommet in the passenger's mat, made a little slit in the carpet for the hook, and Viola!

 

thats some great stuff! I just may go about doing the heated mirror mod, and hook for the floormat! Seems easy enough, and really not that expensive

 

The mirror mod is definitely easy, though if you're uncomfortable with minor disassembly, wiring, and soldering it might not be for you. You can also (if inclined) buy the entire mirror housing with the heated glass/wiring already in. Those cost (at least for the 3) ~$100/side. To install it's literally pop the panel off, unplug the mirror, remove three bolts, pull housing off of car, then repeat in reverse. 5 minutes per side tops. Personally for me it was worth it to spend less than half as much and do it myself. Since the 5 heated glass is $25/side it's even more cost-effective to do this way.

For the floor hook HERE's the thread I found it in.