Mazda 5 (2005 - 2010) 2.0 Sport 5d Owner Review

6/7 seater & sliding side doors was the main attraction so tbe Mazda 5 popped onto the radar. With only £1300 budget I had to search hard for a decent one, settling for a 2.0 sport petrol. Don't let higher mileage put you off, since the mechanicals are well-proven and shared with Ford focus and Volvo. The 2.0 petrol LF Engine is good for 250-300k miles when serviced regularly. Use good quality oil and filter every 12,000 miles or annually. Our car had done 152k at purchase, now 155k; starting its life with Hertz car rental and doing 55k in first 3 yrs and being serviced correctly. 2nd owner recorded & serviced it perfectly throughout the next 100k miles. It's quiet, uses no oil or water & still pulls strong. Timing chain, so no cambelt to worry about. So with a good history, mileage is not a concern. I'm handy with spanners so our car got a full check over- rust was taking hold on the inner sills but was sorted with removing trims and wire brushing & waxoyl also into sill voids through bung holes. Air con was fixed with a diy-fit new condenser for £55. Plenty of used spares online for any trim items that are broken, apart from the rear seat belt holding clips that break easily and are extortionate cost from mazda. Diy servicing is easy and parts cheap enough. Oil filters are common with 2.0 mondeo or focus, so no need to fork out for mazda item. Same with air filter and spark plugs & all engine sensors. Pollen filter is a pita involving removal of passenger side lower dash to access. Wheel arch liners & sill trims are mud traps so remove and clean to prevent rusting. Get some wheelarch 6mm trim clips cheap online as you'll break a few. Sill clips come out with a screwdriver blade pushed onto the tab. The car is put together well, no squeaks or rattles. Ours has needed front roll bar drop links and a few other suspension bits in the past but nothing major and all less than £100 fitted. For it's size it handles very well, sticks to the road with very little body roll. You forget you're in a people carrier and have to be careful on roundabouts because folk assume you can't possibly be going that fast and tend to pull out on you! Electric speed-sensitive power steering on our sport model gives good feel when up to speed but is tuned for ease at town speeds and feels over-assisted to me. Elevated driving position gives good visibility although rear parking sensors are a godsend. Mirrors are big and good. All controls are easy to use and logical. Reading up on this model gave many horror stories of alarming rear tyre wear on inner tyre edges-no signs of that on ours but will monitor and if needed there is a fix to fit Ford focus adjustable rear arms to remove the excessive rear camber. It seems mazda engineered a lot of rear camber for good handling at the expense of tyre wear, so if it becomes a problem I'll be OK to sacrifice a little to get better tyre wear. Front tyres will wear too as it's a powerful but heavy car with superb brakes that encourages spirited driving! The gearchange on ours was quite stiff, all gears. The gear cables are routed over the hot exhaust manifold so probably the reason why they dry out & get stiff. New cables are a pita to fit & expensive. Pulling the gear cables rubber boots back and injecting high temp grease thinned down with wd40 cured this & freed them up fine on ours. The one Achilles heel of the petrol car is its fuel consumption, it's a thirsty car, expect 30-32mpg with these LF engines, or high twenties with a full load or town driving. Buy wisely on condition rather than mileage (check for rusty sills) and don't expect awesome fuel economy and you'll have a cheap, superb, family-friendly cruiser that's also fun to drive.