2007 Mazda 5 1.8L Petrol

Bolomaster

Are these any use? I have a budget of ~6k with 1k change for any issues that may arise.

From what I've read they like to eat their rear tyres but I can live with that if I still get 6 - 8k out of a set.

Here is an example I've found:

http://www.carzone.ie/used-cars/mazda/mazda5/used-2007-mazda-mazda5-1-8-execut-dublin-fpa-200814393773357220

Opinions welcome!

techie

Hi, try and get a 08 Facelift, we have one and they are a great car.
The 1.8 engine is great and not too bad on Petrol , my wife drives it and she does not complain about it anyway

DubDani

We have a 2006, and while they are generally reliable and driving well I probably wouldn't buy one again.

If you really need a 7 seater I would avoid it, as it in reality really is only a 6 seater. The middle seat is pretty narrow and almost unusable, especially with Car seats (unless you have a tiny wife/3rd child). It's also quite heavy on the Petrol, with ours taking roughly 10l/100km.

In addition to that it is eating through suspension parts/bushes/shocks, which seems to be a very common problem with this car. We had to replace bushes before every (yearly) MOT in order to pass, and in addition also had to replace several shocks, wishbones etc. Considering that we are only doing 7-8K miles in this car per year it seems like excessive wear.

techie

Exactly why i said go for a 08 onwards. We get 35mpg on ours and no bother with suspension. They are a 6 seater alright but that is a full 6 seats, drive one and see if it suits you

Bolomaster

Thanks for the assistance guys! I appreciate it.

So I'll have to scope out suspension etc. into running costs. No fun.

DubDani

Bolomaster wrote: »

Thanks for the assistance guys! I appreciate it.

So I'll have to scope out suspension etc. into running costs. No fun.

The parts itself are usually not this expensive, and when getting done via a regular Service shouldn't be too bad in terms of costs. Just very annoying to have these things done so often. :rolleyes:

Clearlier

I've had the 2.0L petrol for 5 years now. It was first registered in October 2006 and definitely has the suspension problems. I'm replacing bits of it every 20k miles or so. The parts aren't expensive but the labour costs add up. I understood that they had resolved the suspension issues before the facelift but I don't know whether a 2007 model would have the problem or not. If it's got a full service history then you should be able to tell - of course knowing whether it's full or not is another thing!

What sold it for us was the flexibility of the layout which has since been copied by the Ford C-Max but was at the time well ahead of any other car we saw. While I don't think that it's particularly frugal in its use of petrol I do less than 10k miles a year and usually go 3-4 weeks between refills so it's not an issue I notice.

Although it's based on the Ford Focus and apparently handles better than most MPV's it's not a car you'll be buying for the driving experience.