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12th Apr 2013

The Mazda 5: There’s so much room for activities…

While the title of this review may just be a stolen quote from the movie 'Step Brothers', there genuinely is no better way to describe the Mazda5.

Oisin Collins


While the title of this review may just be a stolen quote from the movie Step Brothers, there genuinely is no better way to describe the Mazda5.

We’re always testing out the cool and sleek motors that every young lad who still has a blue licence drools over, but we always have time to test out the slightly more practical family cars (sure, we’re going to need to know about them at some stage…. probably).

This week, we took the new Mazda5 on the school run and we have to say, it was extremely comfortable. Okay, so seeing as none of us actually have kids in the office (that we know of) it would have been a bit weird to do the school run, but we found some nicely congested sections of Dublin City to test out how the car fared in the though morning commute.

So first things first; what is the Mazda5? Well the folk over at Mazda call the Mazda5 a ‘Multi-Activity Vehicle’ and it’s not hard to see why once you take a look inside the MASSIVE cabin. Seriously, it’s like a small Celtic Tiger boom apartment in there. But ‘Multi-Activity Vehicle’ is just another way of saying multi-purpose vehicle, or MPV, so it’s another 7-seater at the end of the day.

So who’s it for? Well, obviously, it’s for the lads who might have a young brood to look after or for the bloke who needs something big enough to carry lots of gear around (and we don’t mean the dodgy kind of gear). Think the surfer who has to carry his boards and wetsuit or the scuba driver who needs to carry a few tanks around with him.

With the two rear seats folded, the Mazda5 is an extremely spacious 5-seater and the nifty picnic tables attached to the back seats are sure to keep the kids occupied – if only for awhile. The boot is also huge with the two rear seats down. Definitely big enough to cart your massive Irish wolfhound around wherever you go. With the two rear seats up, the boot space is a bit lacking but the Mazda5 will comfortable take seven fully-grown adults.

As for the drive, you’d swear it was a normal car. Okay, so you can’t throw it into a corner, but it’s a seven seater after all so it was never designed to go around corners at speed. Other than that, the steering is nice and light, but not so light that you might think it was designed only for women and it takes off nice and smoothly in the congested ‘school run’ traffic, especially for a diesel. It even looks a bit like a normal car just with some extra head room on top and length in the back.

The key selling point for the Mazda5 is the space/safety aspect and like we said there is so much room for activities. It would be a great car to drive on to a beach for a nice family picnic or over to France for a week and it gives you the piece of mind that your precious cargo – be it the kids, or the aforementioned scuba gear – is nice and safe.

The Mazda5 we tested was the 1.6 Executive version that comes with air conditioning, cruise control, electric windows and central locking as standard. The exterior comes with two large, but light, sliding doors for the rear passengers and halogen headlights up front.

The top speed is a cool 180km/h and it will reach 0-100km in a fairly boring 14 seconds (again, this car was not built for speed). As for the CO2 emissions, they come in at 138g/km putting the Mazda5 in Tax Band B2 (€280 per annum), which isn’t great but it is a large diesel at the end of the day.

So how much? Well, the Mazda5 we tested comes in at €26,495 (still a fair bit cheaper than rivals, like Ford), but you can get the Mazda5 Comfort model, which comes with a few less bells and whistles, for just €25,495. On the other hand, anyone with a bit of cash to burn can splash out on the Mazda5 Sport which costs €30,495.

Would we buy one? Maybe in a few years when we’ve more kids then we do hairs on our heads, but for now we’ll stick with the gorgeous Mazda6… or MX-5 instead. We’re still young (at heart).

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Car Reviews