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Outo car guide
Mazda’s five-seat SUV: good to drive, well made, and easy to find from Japan. Here is every colour, grade and engine Japan sold, and which one we’d honestly get.
12 colours were offered on the KF. A + marks paint that cost extra when new, which usually means a better finish.
The seats are what you live with. Fabric is cooler on a hot day; leather and leather-look wipe clean.
Japanese grades, from the simplest up. Each adds to the one before it.
In plain words, with our honest take.
Photo: Clément Bucco-Lechat, CC BY-SA 3.0The relaxed, smooth petrol. Clearly stronger than the 2.0 with a full car or on the highway, uses only a little more fuel, and has none of the diesel's soot worries. From 2018 it rests two of its four cylinders when cruising, to save fuel.
What we’d tell a friend buying a CX-5.
Reliability surveys rate petrol CX-5s clearly better than diesels, and Mazda's petrol engines are known to be tough. For most Nairobi drivers a petrol is the easier car to own, even if it uses a little more on long trips.
The 2.0 is fine for town and light loads and is almost always 2WD. The 2.5 pulls clearly better up hills, with a full car and when overtaking, can be AWD, and from 2018 rests two cylinders when cruising.
From Japan, a 25S L Package, or a 25S PROACTIVE or Smart Edition, gives you the strong petrol with the important safety kit. Black Tone and Sports Appearance add looks for little money. For the cheapest well-kitted car, a 20S PROACTIVE or Smart Edition.
Its soot filter (DPF) only cleans itself when the engine stays hot on a long run, about 30 km non-stop every few weeks. A car that only crawls through Nairobi traffic can block the filter, show warnings and lose power. If your week is mostly short town trips, pick a petrol.
When the filter's clean-up gets cut short, diesel washes into the engine oil, so the level rises instead of falling. Thinned oil wears the engine and turbo. Oil above the top mark, or oil that smells of diesel, is a warning sign.
Mazda's handbook asks for a low-ash oil made for soot filters. Ordinary diesel oil shortens the filter's life, so ask which oil was used and when it was changed.
Diesels used only in town build up carbon in the intake and exhaust-gas valve, which shows as rough running, smoke and weak pulling. A diesel with records of a carbon clean is the better bet.
Cars with stop-start (i-stop) need a special battery. A cheap ordinary one stops stop-start working and can cause electrical faults. Look at the battery label and check stop-start works.
Kenya only lets in used cars first registered within the last eight years, so a CX-5 imported today is a 2019 or newer KF. Any older CX-5 is already here; ask for its Kenyan logbook history and service records.
Six checks for a car already in Kenya. Anthony does all six with you at the viewing.
Importing from Japan works differently: see Import bila stress →
