2023 Mazda CX-50 vs CX-5 Review - Which is BETTER?

In this episode of Car Review Court, I am going to defend the 2023 Mazda CX-50 to the death. And I'm going to defend the 2022 Mazda CX-5, because who needs plastic cladding, right? Well, Yuri, by my math, 50 is exactly 45 better than 5. Okay, whatever. Let's get into what these are to start off with. The CX-5 is newly updated, so we have color-matched cladding, new headlights, new taillights, and the CX-50 is a brand new model. What kind of model is it? And you may be thinking that the CX-50 is actually based on the CX-5. It is not. This is actually the same platform as the Mazda CX-30. It is just stretched and heightened up a bit. Yeah, the CX-50 is lower, wider, and longer than the CX-5, but it actually has more ground clearance for its off-road prowess. And that is meant to be the option for people who want to go off-roading and all that kind of stuff. And this is more of the city, urban vehicle choice. So I am going to defend my CX-50 client, starting with the exterior. It has plastic cladding, and everybody loves plastic cladding these days. If you are doing off-roading, which your segment is meant for, cool. But for urban city driving, plastic cladding is useless. Nobody likes plastic cladding. And it is so nice to see a color-matched CX-5, especially in this beautiful white color. While that does look pretty impressive, the wide stance of this vehicle just looks even more impressive, more imposing. Lots of people are stricken with fear when they see this car on the road. Are they stricken with fear because of the fake plastic vents in the back of the bumper? Yuri, plastic vents are a way to enhance the character of vehicles, which I love so dearly. So then both of these have similar headlights and similar taillights that are refreshed from last year's CX-5. Except the CX-50 has much more aggressive-looking ones where they kind of just cut off the tops of them. But unfortunately, both of these cars can't have the front daytime running lights on while driving. They both force you to full headlight mode. And we have the exact same looking exhaust tips, nice round, nothing fake going on either of these. And I know where I'm going to beat you for sure. With the horsepower and torque. There's no chance you're going to beat me with the exact same horsepower and torque for both of these. 227 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque on 87 octane from a 2.5-liter four-cylinder turbo. But little do you know, I filled this up with 91 octane before we started, so I should have a little bit of a horsepower bump. Well, actually, we didn't fill up either of these, so that is a lie in court. But if I did have more octane, I should be faster. But maybe I'm faster anyways. So both of us in sport mode, both in automatic. Let's just floor it in three. Oh, Judge Jury, do you see this? I have murdered the CX-50. However, what the audience was blessed with when they heard my interior sound is the sound of the pumped-in audio for some reason. I feel like that's generally not a good thing, but it's nice to see that you're flip-flopping more than you usually do to embrace that, Jacob. I'm just a very good lawyer that has to defend all of my clients in the most unbiased fashion, which is biased fourth client. Okay, well, I got something I want you to defend then. How about seat comfort? In the CX-5, we have nice, normal seats. No weird stitching in any weird positions at all. How about the CX-50, Jacob? I would like to bring to my defense myself reviewing the CX-5 previously, where I said it's like I'm sitting on cardboard. I find these CX-5 seats to be a little bit firm. I kind of feel like I'm sitting on cardboard. Very uncomfortable until the moment that I sat in this and I actually am more comfortable in the CX-5. The problem with the CX-50 that I see from my lawyer point of view is that there's this nice-looking stitching down the center, but when you sit down, it feels uncomfortable. It feels like I'm sitting with like a licorice string in my butt crack or something at all times. Like I sat on licorice and that's the car seat. Yeah, yeah. It's like you're sitting on a pepperoni or something, like a pepperoni stick. But I will give it to your client. The CX-50 seats look awesome, the stitching looks awesome, and the stitching on the dash that matches the uncomfortable seats to me also looks awesome. There's a great balance of ruggedness, but also luxury in the CX-50. And if you're looking to test out the seats of either of these, check out tsp.truecar.com. Discounted price offers. Your wheels. Not my favorite. The wheels on the Mazda CX-50 are just gorgeous. They have two different colors. You only have one. The CX-5 wheels are a more mature look. And as I am a more mature person, I think it fits perfectly. But what would be the Continental recommended tire for both of these vehicles? That would be the Cross Contact LX-25, or if you wanted to go on a rugged adventure, the Terrain Contact HT, or an even more rugged adventure, the Terrain Contact AT. But there's going to be an off-roady version of this CX-50 called the Meridian, which is actually going to have smaller wheels with knobbier tires. So the Meridian will lose. And then it's going to have these tacky stickers on the hood and stuff. Yuck! Off-roady stickers are fantastic. As a bias representative with someone that owns a Raptor with stickers all over it, great choice Mazda. One more superficial thing about the outside. How do you get into your car, Yuri, when you lock and unlock the door? I do have a button there. So I know when I'm pushing it, there's no accidental putting my hand there and unlocking my car without expecting to unlock it. That sounds and looks like an eyesore from here. So my beautiful handles do not have that. There's just regular proximity like a real luxury vehicle. I rest my case on that particular subject, your honor. Resting your case when you lose isn't a good thing. I don't know. I don't know the terms. I'm going to have to watch for law and order. Okay. So then your Mazda CX-50, it's three inches wider than the CX-5, which makes it way more difficult for parking. And because you have these ugly fender flares that stick out, and then on the plastic cladding you have this really cool, I mean, ugly-looking part that gets stuck out of there, too. Why would you want a wider car? It makes it so much more difficult. Well, Yuri, a small-minded person may think things like that. However, I have a great 360 camera with even higher-looking resolution than yours. Well, the CX-5 is based off an older platform, so that would explain some of it. But the 360 camera is still very good, and we can still see all the angles of the front wheels, the sides, the front end, the back very clearly in both. So you mentioned that I have a lot of extra length and girth. I did not say the word girth in this car review, so keep going. I'm interpreting width as girth. So anyways, thank you very much for the compliments. Next compliment to myself is my trunk space. So if I open my trunk, I have significantly more room than you. It's actually longer and wider. It makes it more difficult to park in smaller spaces, and I don't really like that. I'm glad I don't have that extra 10 inches of length, even though it is cool that you can fit more stuff in your trunk. I think that was meant so you could fit coolers and tents lengthwise instead of widthwise, which, you know, that's cool. Maybe just buy a smaller cooler. But I also have another feature that you don't have is I can actually lock this vehicle from the trunk button where you can't. Oh, yeah. I can only close it. That is a cool feature. And I did notice that you had a lot of grocery bag hangers in the back of that trunk too, which I think is very cool. Off the record that you can't use that as points towards your argument because I said off the record. Ah, damn it. So I want to get back on the record talking about rear seat room, which is substantially better in the CX-50. I have lots of head and leg room. I would like to bring forward the evidence of myself at five foot eight sitting behind you at six foot one and a half in both of these vehicles. I have perfectly more than enough near room in both and it's not even an issue unless you're oversized, overheighted. Inadmissible because you're so short, you fit in like Mazda Miatas and stuff like that. So it's actually completely irrelevant. You fit in everything. I feel like I'm as tall as Vin Diesel from that one time I met him in real life. And I'm definitely as tall as Tom Cruise. The words you're using are wrong because you're saying I'm as short as Vin Diesel and I'm as short as Tom Cruise, not as tall as. Yeah, I'm as short as Vin Diesel and I'm as short as Tom Cruise. Yeah, I'm okay with that. And here's a fun fact. The Mazda CX-50 is the first Mazda built in the United States of America at a joint plant with Toyota. So you're going to get that Toyota quality in a plant in Alabama. And mine was built in Japan. Take that for what you will. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, moving on to the interiors. We both have the same infotainment kind of, but you've got a more updated screen, a little bit wider, and you have the updated command center. I have the older one with a slightly taller, smaller wheel. Yeah, the setup in the CX-50 is significantly better for a number of reasons. It is not significantly better. They are pretty much exactly the same. Yuri, put a cup in your cup holders. My cup holder is behind the infotainment. That's not related to the infotainment. It's around the command center. Okay, go on, go on. So the cup holder placement is significantly better in the CX-50, but they both pass, just so you know. But the infotainment, I have an extra feature where I can actually use my hand to touch the screen in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which are wireless, so Mazda is making concessions slowly. Yeah, I mean, I'm still all right with the command center. This is one of my favorite infotainments, so as far as I'm concerned, both of them do really well. You can hold the home button to toggle between whatever your normal infotainment and your Apple CarPlay is in both of these. And both of these do have TuneMix, which is super awesome to have, my favorite Sirius XM feature. And then Jacob, do you have all hard buttons for your climate below your infotainment? Of course I do. I have very nice touch points for all my climate controls. I have heated and ventilated seats and a heated steering wheel. As do I in the CX-5. And then both of these have adaptive cruise and lane keep, but I feel like it's only lane departure that pulls you out of the lane, so neither of them have an advantage there. And then we both have head-up displays that are both pretty much the same and pretty decent. And in case you missed our live video comparison, let's do a visor test. Three, two, one, double fail. And then myself as being someone who doesn't really like sunroofs, I don't really like moonroofs. I feel like it's too much light. I only have a small sunroof, which I think is the best feature of this CX-5. Yuri, how many videos have we filmed up until this point? 500. I present 500 videos where Yuri says he loves sunroofs as large as possible, which is what I have in the CX-50. I'm not aware of that, Yuri. This is a different Yuri representing this CX-5. And I noticed you have roof rails on your CX-50, where my CX-5 doesn't have that extra stuff I don't need. It has a nice, smooth shape for my city slicker SUV. Yes, this off-roady SUV can actually accommodate apparently up to a three-person tent, so three people plus the tent. And there's actually more rigidity in the B-pillars and in the body, so you can actually stand on the back doors and then load yourself up there. Okay, another thing. Would you say your car has more Jinba-yitai than mine? Because I feel like the CX-5 has a little bit more Jinba-yitai. I think the CX-50 has significantly more Jinba-yitai. And if you're not familiar with that, that's Mazda theory that you're one with warrior, aka one with the car. And I'm going to prove that the CX-50 is better through Cliché Corner, which we are almost at. And on the way to Cliché Corner, if I put it into sport mode, my gauge cluster turns red. It has a cool graphic. I feel like that's updated from previous generations. And if I remember correctly, that CX-50 has the exact same gauge cluster. It does. I have sport, normal, and off-road. However, I have a tow mode if there's a trailer hooked up where I can tow up to 3,500 pounds, and you can't. With the same engine, you can only tow 2,000. I wouldn't tow anything. I live in the city. Maybe one jet ski, and that's about it. I think that that's perfectly reasonable. And some fun touchpoint items in both vehicles. There's actually a hand-shaped handle to actually grab on in the CX-50, where there is not in the CX-5. No, you just use your handle to open it like a normal car. And I think normal car stuff is the best, especially for how crazy the future is getting. And a nice normal car thing that both of these cars have is memory seats in the front. And another nice thing that we have in the top trims, we actually have paddle shifters in both. A little bit plasticky in both, so not really a knock against either, just both at the same time. And they're both the same as the six-speed automatic transmissions that are gonna upshift for you when you floor and hit red line. On the way to the train tracks, get into manual mode, go into second gear, and let's floor it at the exact same time. Oh, I was slow on the throttle there. Dustin! It's the same, but the CX-5 will eventually pull away. Yeah, for some reason, this one's faster. Maybe it's that extra girth that you got that's slowing you down there, bud. Hey, man, it's the motion of the ocean. And now it's time for gratuitous slow-mo shots over the train tracks. Let us know which one looks better. Presenting my evidence of the CX-50. CX-5 on the train tracks felt pretty good to me. Felt pretty decent to me, too. You the jury, decide in the comments below. Brake boost into cliche corner, go. Right on you, Jacob. That was pretty good, though. I felt a little bit of wheel slip, but this all-wheel drive system actually feels a lot better, even though it is very much the same. This has the biggest torque coupler that Mazda has fitted to a vehicle. Yeah, and through the little S's before cliche. No issues with the CX-5. No, this feels great, too. Sport mode, let's see if you can keep up with me through cliche corner, and man, does this feel really flat through here. CX-5 feels good, too. No complaints at all. I can see some body roll in my rear-view mirror, and pulling away from you now. Oh, this handles better. Slightest bit of understeer, but I'm like right on you. This definitely does feel flatter and better, and I think the suspension is overall better tuned surprisingly for the road. Let's spin them around. I'll go first, and we'll both turn off traction control. So with the CX-5, I've just realized they've removed the traction control button, even though it shows that it's still there in the manual. Ah-ha, traction control off and totally off in the Mazda CX-50. And that first bump going into the best direction of cliche corner, oh, feels great. Ooh, feel great, yep. All I can hear is my intake sound. Ooh, turn in. You know what? I'm flooring it, and the G-vectoring stopped it from understeering and kept me going through, so. Oh, the turn in is so much better in this car. It almost feels rear-biased compared to yours. Yeah, mine will get me through, but it's not amazing, and I remember that CX-30 was amazing in Palm Springs, and the CX-5 wasn't that great against the Taos. So yeah, maybe if you want a race car, your Mazda, the CX-50 is the choice to go. Surprisingly, the CX-50 actually handles better. I did not expect that. I mean, yes, I did. My client is better than yours. That new CX-30 chassis, man, I'm telling you. So with all that out of the way, I think it's time we get to the price. Let's start with the vehicle that is the cheaper vehicle, which is the CX-5. The less expensive vehicle. There's nothing cheap about this. Yeah, yeah, I chose my words carefully. The cheaper vehicle starts at $30,200. Canadian. And the CX-50 starts at $37,900. However, we are driving the top trims. The signature CX-5 is $43,200, and the CX-50 GT Turbo is $45,350. Not the worst discrepancy at the higher end, but at the lower end, it seems you can get in a CX-5 for a lot less, which is a very cool feature. Lawyer hat off. I didn't think I would like the CX-50 as much as I do. It looks fantastic. It drives even better than the CX-5. Yes, the seats are not the most comfortable. So if you're considering this, definitely sit in one in a dealership. Taking off my lawyer hat, which is my tsp.trucar.com hat. Yeah, if it wasn't for the seat comfort, I'd be team CX-50 all the way. I think you should definitely sit in it before deciding if you're going to go for it. I'm wondering if there are different seat options for that, because that's the only thing really holding me back from pretty much getting one of those for my wife, who loves the CX-5 and CX-50 looks. And yes, these are very, very similar cars. However, there's enough differences, I think, to justify the price difference of the CX-50. So if you are shopping for this, I think you actually do get a lot of value if you choose the CX-50. But this updated CX-5 looks awesome. We haven't driven it yet. I think they did a great job with the headlights, taillights, and the plastic cladding. Like, this is pretty sweet too. I think it's a thing that they worked into the model years with like, you know what, we're going to do plastic cladding at first, and then we're going to delete it so we can impress everyone that's been complaining about plastic cladding, like us, for the last couple of years. So either way, if you're happy with either one of these, you can't really go wrong. And let us know what you thought of this episode of Car Review Court. And I need to add that I would actually pick this over the Subaru Forester Wilderness Edition. I can't fully decide on that yet. That had really good adaptive cruise lane keep, and it was very, very capable in winter, and it had tune mix as well. Easy decision, no CVT here, and it looks fantastic.