Ride & Handling

The Mazda5's steering response is designed to engage the driver. A turn of the wheel delivers a quick change of direction, and there's a fair amount of feedback. The suspension is on the firm side, but it provides a tolerable ride even on the broken pavement that's prevalent near Cars.com's Chicago headquarters.

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    The Inside
    Because of its preproduction status, Mazda warned that there might be some imperfect trim pieces in the cabin, but our CX-9 held up well to our scrutiny. Sport models have cloth seats, and the fir ...

    Zoom-Zoom Handling
    The Mazda CX9 body shell has a highly rigid structure in the lower body with multiple cross members under the floor, a reinforced upper body area at the C-pillar, a high-tensile steel B-pillar and ...

    Superior Traction - Mazda's Active Torque-Split All-Wheel Drive
    A main contributor to the predictable handling of the Mazda CX9 is its Active Torque-Split All-Wheel Drive system that provides traction in all road situations. Based on the system used by the Maz ...