The Hardest Part: The 2026 Mazda CX-5 2.5 S Premium Plus

Sep 11

4 min read

I have said it before and I'll say it again:

The hardest part of having a great product is not screwing it up when it's time for the next generation.

The Mazda CX-5 was brilliant out of the gate with Gen 1 (2013-2016) and no one can argue that it didn't stick the landing when it introduced Gen 2, which had an incredible nine-year run.

Now comes the third-generation Mazda CX-5.

The exterior is unmistakable. It's a CX-5, just refined. More interesting details, a bit beefier and more rugged, but not cartoonishly so.

Under the hood, the same 2.5-liter, 187-horsepower, 186 lb-ft of torque four-cylinder as before. It's the only engine this year. EPA fuel economy estimate 24 mpg city/30 mpg highway.

The turbo found in Gen 2 CX-5s won't be back and likely will be replaced by a performance-enhancing hybrid in the near future. If you like the turbo (a 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with 227 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque that bumps up to 256 hp and 320 lb-ft on 93 octane fuel), it's still available in the Mazda CX-50.

The new CX-5 is five inches longer than the old one, and that length all goes to people and cargo, with an additional four inches of rear-seat legroom and a healthy increase in cargo capacity, with the cherry on top being a redesigned rear liftgate opening, making loading and unloading much easier.

And that brings us inside the cabin.

A decade is a long time in car design. The changes in interiors in the nine years between 2016 and 2026 are mind-blowing. Let's illustrate with the cockpit of the 2024 CX-5 (the most recent one I've driven until now) and the 2026 CX-5 next to each other:

Okay, there's a lot to unpack in that comparison (apart from how bad I was as a photographer in late 2023).

Bright trim has largely been replaced by black...

Physical gauges have been replaced by a configurable display...

Climate control vents have been moved lower...

And there is now a big (12.9 inches is standard, Premium Plus models like our tester get 15.6 inches) color touchscreen in the middle of the dashboard.

Now, this could be good news. No one I've ever met liked the old half a screen peeking up from the top of the dash that had to be controlled using a rotary knob next to the shifter on the center console. It was laggy and distracting to use. This should be better simply by being different. But that isn't the case.

Toyota has a similarly large screen in its all-new RAV4. Toyota, to its credit, puts a physical volume knob in the center of the lower edge of the screen. There is no knob on the CX-5 screen. To adjust the volume requires tapping the "sound" icon, and then using a slider on the touchscreen:

That icon's placement on the right half of the screen pretty much leaves the driver with the redundant volume control on the steering wheel:

Beyond that, Mazda has put all the functions into the CX-5's touchscreen. Climate control adjustments that were controlled by physical knobs in the last CX-5? In the screen. Adjusting the brightness of the touchscreen and the driver information screen?

In the screen.

There is so much in there that to see it all requires scrolling. And it's alphabetical, which means "Settings" (which is where you have to go to adjust the screen brightness) isn't in the first group.

By the way, yes, that is a video game you see in the first image (BB Racing 2):

Wanna know how long it took me to realize that there is no "exit" or "back" button and then how long it was before I figured out that I had to tap the bottom of the screen to wake up the infotainment menu and switch to literally anything else?

All of that would be bad enough if it worked well, but it very much doesn't. The reviews on Reddit are brutal, and Mazda has been pushing updates trying to de-bug the system.

With that, back to some basics.

The base price of the 2026 Mazda CX-5 2.5 S Premium Plus is $38,990 ($40,485 including destination). That money buys a lengthy list of standard equipment (see the window sticker at the end of this review). The only extra-cost option on our test vehicle was the Polymetal Gray Metallic paint ($595), putting the as-tested price at $41,080.

This all feels familiar in a very ominous way. Three years ago, when Mazda replaced the CX-9 with the CX-90, there were some very un-Mazdalike issues. My review of that car (actually two cars---Mazda had to swap one out) is the single most-viewed review in the six years this site has been online---largely due to the number of CX-90 buyers sharing it on forums as evidence that they weren't outliers.

Mazda, to its credit, has been responsive in trying to address the CX-90 issues, but the owner forums are still not the happiest place on earth, and my subsequent reviews have ended at the same place: I wish I could, but I can't recommend you buy one.

And I cannot tell you how much I hope the new CX-5 isn't headed down the same road.

2026 Mazda CX-5 2.5 S Premium Plus at a glance:

Price: $38,990 base/$41,080 as tested

Engine: 2.5-liter four cylinder

Horsepower: 187

Torque: 186 lb-ft

Transmission: Six-speed automatic

Curb Weight: 3,856 lbs.

0-60 Acceleration (Car and Driver data): 8.0 seconds

EPA Fuel Economy Estimate: 24 mpg city/30 mpg highway

Fuel tank capacity: 15.3 gallons