The dashboard is very minivan-ish, with broad reaches of quality plastic spreading far forward beneath the sharply raked windshield. Symmetrical right and left panels belie the Mazda5's international character, as it's easily re-cobbled for right-hand drive countries. The look is sleek and high tech, but with an odd-looking gash splitting the upper and lower halves of the dash. Air vents shutter like window blinds if the cool or warm air gets too much. Metallic-look plastic trims the center stack, shift console and front door handles. The instrument cluster is pleasantly basic, with eye-catching contrasts between speedometer and supportive gauges. Equally pleasant surprises for a car in this class are the steering wheel-mounted controls for audio and cruise settings. The display screen for navigation system that's optional on the Touring rises out of the dash top above the center stack and offers four angle settings to fight glare. A panel with the system's controls is tacked onto the console on the driver's side of the shift gate.
Audio and climate controls are sublime, with large, round knobs and widely spaced, clearly marked buttons. The navigation system takes some acclimation, what with the controls located down on the shift console, but they're basic enough that the learning curve is relatively short.
Seats are, well, adequate, best in the front row, then losing both comfort and support as you move to the third row. Seat bottoms could be deeper, and bolsters could be more substantive. The driver's seat height adjustment is manual and pivots on the front of the seat bottom. Thus, the higher it's ratcheted, the less leg room it leaves.
Head restraints are adjustable in all three rows, but they, too, diminish in comfort in the second and third rows, especially the rearmost, which are functional, yes, but add nothing to an already minimally accommodating seat. On the other hand, in their lowered position in those two rows they cut so sharply into the upper back anybody sitting there will be sure to adjust them to an effective height just to avoid the pain. And this is a good thing.
Not many adults will want to park for very long in the third row. There's plenty of head room, measuring only 1.4 inches less than that of the Ford Freestyle, another small minivan-cum-station wagon with three rows of seats, and a mere 0.2 inches shy of the Dodge Caravan, a current descendant of the minivan family that created the segment. It's in leg room and hip room that the Mazda5 cramps third-row occupants. It gives up three inches of leg room to both the Freestyle and the Caravan, and a full five inches of hip room to the Freestyle and eight inches to the Caravan. Access to that third row is achieved by yanking on a loop sticking out from between the seat bottom and back and folding the seat bottom forward; then, release a lever on the side and the seat back folds forward. Suffice to say, climbing into the third row is best left to the truly limber and not very tall.
Visibility is good, as expected in a minivan-type transporter. The outside mirrors could be farther forward, as the reason for those faux wind wings is so the track for the front door windows can be far enough back that they'll roll all the way down. The view forward from the second and third row seats is surprisingly unobstructed, thanks to each row being two inches higher than the row in front, and to the positioning of the third row closer to the centerline than either of the front rows.
Climbing in and out is a breeze, including the second row of seats, thanks to the sliding side doors. The rear side door windows roll down, an unexpected feature in sliding doors, leaving only about an inch of glass showing when all the way down. The trade off for this comfort and convenience is no map pockets in those sliders. Those in the front doors are nicely configured, though, with a mold for water bottles along with space for maps and smallish notebooks.
Both second-row seats have storage bins beneath the flip-up seat bottoms, but the right-hand seat has an extra-added attraction: a cool, foldout tray parked under the seat. Lift the seat bottom, fold the tray up and over into the space between the two seats, and voila, you've got a couple of cup holders and flat tray for sandwiches or whatever, with notches in the corners to restrain plastic shopping bags. Lift out the tray bottom, and there's a mesh net for, well, something small, and possibly damp, that'd roll around or otherwise get in the way. Only the driver's seatback gets a magazine pouch.
The bi-level storage area in the front center console is generous, with more than enough room in the top part for a cell phone and in the bottom part for a half-dozen CDs and a radar detector. Its cover is also the reason there's no inboard armrest on the front passenger seat, as it swings up on its hinge right past the front passenger seat back where the armrest would be. Two cup holders wait for duty to call under a flip cover forward of the storage bin.
Rear cargo area is limited with the third row of seats in place. When folded, they yield competitive square footage, at 44.4 cubic feet, about three cubic foot below the Freestyle but a hair above of the Caravan. The cargo area with both second and third row seats collapsed is about 90 cubic feet, according to Mazda, about the same as the Freestyle but way below the Caravan's 142.3 cubic feet. Also, the front-passenger seatback doesn't fold flat like the Freestyle's, so carrying an eight-foot ladder or surfboard is a bit problematical. The rear liftgate has a snub point in the gas struts that stops it before it reaches its full open height. This, Mazda says, is to keep it within reach of shorter people while ensuring it can be raised high enough so taller types needn't worry about cracking a forehead.
The sliding rear side doors are most welcome for loading groceries or passengers in close parking lots. Bags of yard stuff, like landscaping rock and smelly biodegradables, can be hefted into the back with little strain, thanks to the low lift-over. Waist-high, potted shrubs stand upright in the second seat row, thanks to the seamless storage bins under the flip-up seats.
