Mazda CX-5 Pricing and Specs

The CX-5 is a well regarded vehicle in the trade with a good reputation for going the distance and remaining reliable. However, that’s a lot of kilometres for any vehicle.

Which means, you must approach this one purely on its individual merits. That starts with the service history. Unless you can find a complete, detailed record that proves the car has been absolutely maintained correctly, you could be taking a huge punt. You’d also want to learn as much as you can about who owned it and how it was driven. For instance, 300,000km of gentle highway running is a lot different to the same distance in city traffic or towing a trailer around.

Even then, it would want to be really cheap as you might easily find it’s getting very close to the end of its useful life. That said, a well maintained, carefully driven CX-5 can cover this sort of mileage, so maybe this one has some life left in it. Maybe.

There does seem to be a bit of a trend here where the Mazda software won’t talk to its owners’ phones. It’s not just a Mazda thing, either; plenty of car-makers using proprietary software receive customer complaints when the software and apps won’t play ball.

Some owners have had success by disconnecting the car’s battery overnight and forcing a reset to factory settings, but in other cases, the refusal to operate correctly is intermittent.

However, it’s up to Mazda to make good on a fix for this. Whether that involves replacing the head unit and screen with a new one, downloading new software or a patch for the existing stuff or whatever the solution is, your factory new-car warranty should cover this. Make sure the fault has been logged at the dealership (so Mazda knows it’s a pre-existing condition) and don’t be afraid to tackle Mazda Australia’s customer service division to see what can be done.

Looking at the popular CX-5 range from 2017 onwards, is the Mazda CX-5 timing belt or chain driven?

There was a big range of engines used in this model CX-5, but the short answer is a very simple one. It doesn’t matter whether your CX-5 has the 2.0 or 2.5-litre (turbo or non-turbo) or even the turbo-diesel engine option, the engine uses a maintenance-free timing chain rather than a rubber toothed belt.

That means, you don’t need to even think about the timing chain, because it should last the life of the engine. A timing belt, meanwhile, needs regular replacement to avoid doing expensive damage to the engine if it should break while the engine was running.