Congressional Mazda

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Walk Around

The Mazda5's hood is expansive and flows gracefully into the windshield and A-pillars. The entire front end is reworked for 2008. A single, horizontal bar still divides the Mazda5's grille opening and supports the Mazda trademark logo, but the opening itself is more angular and stylized. The same goes for the broad lower air intake and the large fog light recesses. Headlight housings slash into the fenders and reach around the sides to touch the front wheel well arches, which are mostly filled by the tires.

From the side, the vista is much busier, although geometrically consistent. A strong wedge influence flares character lines and surface planes from the pinched-down front end rearward to a tall, chopped off, stubby tail rendered even more awkward by a pouting, bulbous rear bumper. Matte black B-pillars and C-pillars play down the height of the glasshouse. Side mirrors attach to the lower half of small, wind-wing-shaped quarter windows. Body-color, full-round handles bridge concave circles in the doors. A gentle bulge crossing the doors' lower extremities ties together the blistered fenders. The slots for the sliding side doors scar the flanks. The optional side sill extensions create a ground-effect look that somehow works, giving the perspective a more complete, more finished touch.

At the rear, the clear-lens taillight housings maintain their basic shape, but the lights themselves are now LEDs. The liftgate extends well into the rear bumper, removing some visual mass from the back end, as well as easing loading with a low cargo floor. The rear window is fixed. We would prefer an opening rear window to ease loading of items such as groceries. The optional spoiler drags the roofline back and out above the rear window, adding a bit of edginess to the Mazda5's mostly egg-shaped rear outline.

Interior

2008 Mazda 5

Other than the packaging, there's nothing special, or unique, about the interior of the Mazda5. This isn't to discount the packaging. Making room for six in a vehicle casting a smaller shadow than the company's five-passenger, Mazda6 sedan is no small achievement. But beyond this, the interior is in line with what's to be expected of a vehicle in the Mazda5's price range.

The dashboard looks like something you'd see in a minivan, with broad reaches of quality plastic spreading far forward beneath the sharply raked windshield. Symmetrical right and left panels belie the Mazda5's international character, as it's easily re-cobbled for right-hand drive countries. The look is sleek and high tech, but with an odd-looking indentation splitting the upper and lower halves of the dash. Air vents shutter like window blinds if the cool or warm air gets to be too much. Metallic-look plastic trims the center stack, shift console and front door handles. The instrument cluster is pleasantly basic, with eye-catching contrasts between the speedometer and supporting gauges. Equally pleasant surprises for a car in this class are the steering wheel-mounted controls for audio and cruise settings.

The optional navigation system's screen has been moved for 2008. It used to rise out of the dash top above the center stack and had a control panel tacked onto the console on the driver's side of the shift gate. It is now integrated in the spot normally reserved for the radio. Menu buttons for the navigation system and radio are now placed above and below the screen, and some of the functions are controlled by touching the screen. The system will take some time to learn, but it should become natural after a few weeks. (The GPS was in the navigation system in our test vehicle wasn't working correctly. Though we were driving around Chicago, it thought we were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.) The climate controls are sublime, with large, round knobs and widely spaced, clearly marked buttons.

The seats are, well, adequate: they are best in the front row, and they lose both comfort and support as you move farther back. The seat bottoms could be deeper, and the side bolsters could be more substantive. The driver's seat height adjustment is manual and pivots on the front of the seat bottom. Thus, the higher it's ratcheted, the less leg room it leaves. And be aware that opting for a moonroof shaves nearly two inches of headroom in the first row and about a quarter inch in the second.

Head restraints are adjustable in all three rows, but they, too, diminish in comfort in the second and third rows, especially the rearmost, which are functional, yes, but add nothing to an already minimally accommodating seat. On the other hand, in their lowered position in those two rows they cut so sharply into the upper back that anybody sitting there will be sure to adjust them to an effective height just to avoid the pain. And this is a good thing because headrests add a measure of safety.

Not many adults will want to park for very long in the third row. There's decent head room, measuring only 1.5 inches less than in the Ford Taurus X, another tall station wagon with three rows of seats. It's in leg room and hip room that the Mazda5 cramps third-row occupants. It gives up 2.6 inches of leg room to the Taurus X. Access to that third row is achieved one of two ways. You can climb in and snake through the open area between the second-row seats. Or you can yank on a loop located between the second-row seat bottom and back, fold the seat bottom forward, then release a lever on the side and fold the seat back forward. The second choice is also the way to fold the second-row seats down to open up maximum cargo room.

Rear cargo area is limited with the third row of seats in place. When they are folded, the rear compartment opens up to about 44 cubic feet of space, which is still about three cubic feet less than

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