USED Mazda 5 MPV (05 - 11)

My car

I bought the 2.0-litre Sport and immediately drove it to France.

I covered 800 miles in comfort. There's loads of space for two teenage children and it's very comfortable to drive.

It's the best all-round family car I have ever had.

My car

I was the first person on Teesside to buy on of these fabulous Mazda 5s.

My wife saw them being delivered on a transporter to the Mazda dealership, so, being in the market for a new people carrier, we decided to go and take a look.

My first impressions on seeing the Silver 2.0 sport demo model, was that it looked a lot like a small Ford Galaxy, and a bit like the lovely Toyota Verso, but also that it must be £20k worth of car!

With the entry-level 1.8 TS costing £14,300, my family and I immediately asked for a test drive, and we loved the ride comfort, the handling, the cabin space, and the sliding doors made it feel extra special.

On getting back to the dealership, we crawled all over it trying to find reasons to put us off spending the £15K for 1.8 TS2, and found very few! I was very impressed witht the level of equipment in the TS2 and the full length curtain airbags help me to feel certain that we have a very safe family car.

Unfortunatley, Mazda won't release these fabulous cars until the 25th June, so I can't get my hands on ours until the official launch weekend. I will post another review, once I get my hands on it.

So I'm only giving it four out of five at the moment - mainly down to first impressions, and my running costs review is low because I just don't know what it's like yet.

Also, Mazda has lost one star because they didn't have much in the way of brochures etc for the 5 in the dealership.

Roll on the 25th!