The Sunday News
The Mazda 5 has come to be one of those well sought after vehicles. Since we tend to afford only used cars from Japan, we will have the Mazda 5 only as the Premacy. It’s a different name but basically a Mazda 5.
The older Premacy wasn’t all that, I wouldn’t say it was that much of a beauty. It was just stuck somewhere in between ugly and just okay. It had no appeal and none of that “buy me please” character . . . but the predecessor is a bit bold, it’s bulkier and has moved with the times, has had some hip injections here and there. While the cosmetics have very much improved so has the heart and other bits inside.
This is the model from 2006 to 2010. It’s quite old but then it’s one of the cars to likely take over in Zim, you know how we have those phases where everyone imports a certain type of car then when they realise it’s not all that they go on to the next. Besides that, a 2010 car is relatively new for us Zimbos anyway, I mean we still buying cars from 1999!
Mazdas are unmistakable, they all have similar design especially on the front end. At first glance, the Premacy is clearly a Mazda.
It has the same resemblance of the Rx8, the Mx6 and even the Cx7. The panels are flowy and from sideways to the back you can easily notice the wavy design. It didn’t lose its original Premacy shape, it just got a little bigger, you could almost mistake it for a Mazda MPV.
The Mazda Premacy is the same as the Mazda 5 you would find in the UK or South Africa. It comes with automatic sliding rear doors, something I’ve found very unnecessary.
To me it’s like unnecessary technology because when you bring that car to Africa, that uncle of yours from Uzumba Marambapfungwe will hop in the back and force open or close that door not knowing that’s it’s all automatic so for Africa we still need manual sliding doors, you know the type you find on umtshova!
The Mazda Premacy seats 7 people, 5 average size adults and 2 smaller people because the last row of seats is quite small and a bit cramped up. That’s always the case with most of these small mini-vans. You can’t really complain much for the fuel economy and the space. Ideally they are a made for small families with a mind to save fuel as much as saving the planet. There are other models however, which are quite heavy on fuel.
When it comes to the drive-train, the Premacy is just like an oversize Mazda Axela or Atenza because they share the same engines. It’s a 1,8l, 2,0l or 2,3l found in the Axela or Atenza Sport. They are all 4-cylinder dual overhead camshaft engines. Most of them come with automatic transmissions except if you get a Mazda 5 model from the UK or South Africa, in which case you may also get a diesel-powered variant. The Manual transmissions and diesel-powered models are rare in Japan. Japan never liked diesels for some odd reason.
So the engine is transversely set up and it drives the front wheels, like I said earlier, this car is like an oversize Mazda Atenza. You do get good power figures especially with the 2,3l.
These engines have never been known to be economical though, they drink like a whale. If you are going to cry about fuel a lot then you’d need to stick to the 1,8l even though it won’t give more smiles than the 2,2l .
These cars will not be much of a hassle on maintenance because they share engines with very common cars around here. You will find that even some of the drive train components will be similar to the Atenza. Mazda is however, notorious when it comes to spares, they can have same model car with different spares, not too sure why that is so.
However, Mazdas are not very complicated cars, they are easy to maintain and they are quite nice to look at, well, most of them.
One thing about Mazda is that all above all, they make comfortable cars, they may not be the most durable cars around but they don’t compromise on comfort. Mazdas tend to whine a lot like new-born babies. What makes them better is they are easier to fix so you won’t go very wrong getting a Mazda Premacy as long as you will maintain it well and service it when you are supposed to. Sometimes that’s all the trickery there is to keeping a car for a long time.
@lovert116 – Automart Used Spares Centre – Quality Used Japanese Spares -+263772339938 — [email protected] – Facebook: @automartusc
