Wish the mirror mod was available to the UK, would do that.

 

Are heated mirrors available in the UK at all? If so you can probably order the parts from your dealer and do it like I did. Next question, is the wiring present in your car's harness? To check pull the tweeter panel off the inside of the door and look at the wiring plug. If it has five wires then it's wired for heated mirrors.

 

I have three issues with mine; two were corrected in the '08 models (rear air vents and passenger armrest.)

The third has been a nightmare - the 3rd row seatbelts are extremely poorly designed. Because I am hauling four children, it has severely limited my seating options, and caused me to spend hundreds of dollars finding suitable solutions.

The problem is that the shoulder belt is too far forward of the vehicle seat. I am a CPST, so I know what to look for, and these seat belts are a risk, particularly for children. With or without a booster, the shoulder belt does not even come close to contacting their bodies - it sits 3-4 inches in front of them. Aside from greatly increasing the risk that they would be improperly positioned for the seat belt to do its job in a crash, even if they were statues, their upper bodies would still have to be thrown forward that 3-4 inches before engaging the seat belt - and that's a lot of head excursion.

Most booster seats with belt guides do not correct this problem entirely - there's still the issue of head excursion, and depending on the booster, the seat belt has to angle back to fit through the belt guide anyway.

This also creates a problem when installing carseats - several are completely incompatible with the 3rd row seating positions, and even those that do work need a lot of effort to get them installed. They're just too far forward of the vehicle seat for many carseats to install easily there.

Only one of my children still fits in a carseat, and I have no choice but to put her carseat in the 3rd row to use up one of the crappy seat belts. Then I wound up having to purchase a $250 Recaro Start booster because it's the only booster available in the U.S. with locking belt guides, which corrects the shoulder-belt problem. Prior to that, I had purchased EZ-On 86Y harnesses, but those were a marginal solution at best.

The most frustrating part of this whole mess is that Mazda could easily correct this problem by simply using the same kind of seat belts they have in the 2nd row. The shoulder belt routes up to the correct position through a "router," and then down to the retractor which is actually below the seat. If they used a "router" in the 3rd row and simply tilted it back, they could put it in the same location where they currently have the retractor.

I realize that most people probably haven't had as much trouble with this issue as me - not everyone is as obsessed about safety, for one thing, and not many people with 4 kids would buy this car, either. But with such a simple solution, it annoys me that it was ever made this way in the first place, much less that it hasn't been fixed yet.

 

Hi all..

I have a uk2007 reg mazda 5 furano and it has heated mirrors as standed you put them on by putting the heated rear window on....

 

I know this is from 2008, but I just test drove a 2010 Mazda 5 (today is Jan, 29 2011) and the vehicle is pretty much the same. I have almost the exact same issues you do with the 5. I like the concept, but the execution could use some work. Unfortunately the 2011 model (or 2012 if they call it that) only seems to have one change: a 6 speed vs a 5 speed. Everything else looks the same.

 

I followed your HOW TO: Heated mirror install, & LED puddle lamps and found that the "heat" pins are already in place and the cable is connected to these pins. Unfortunately, no voltage appears on these pins when rear or front defrost is turned on. How did you solve such problem in 5 (trim: GS, year: 2012)?

 

My biggest gripe by far:

That the power outlets are only live with the ignition switch in the ON position.

Hate it, and will be re-powering them to make up for it.

That, and there aren't enough of them. Needs to be 3 at least in the front, 2 in the 2nd row, and preferably a couple for the back row..Just another thing I have to do myself.

 

When you get around to this, please take some pictures and maybe do a writeup. I'd like to add a second outlet in the front where the aux in is located (or was located, I swapped out my head unit).

Unless I'm missing something, there are only two outlets on the '09, right? The one in the front and the one behind the third row? I have an '09 Sport.