Saying goodbye

Lots of memories in the Mazda5 - this boy is now a teenager

We've been searching for a replacement for our beloved Mazda5 for quite a while - with four kids, one of whom is a growing teenage boy, our old Mazda is just too small. It was a tough search - as we were looking for something practical, fun to drive, and environmentally friendly. 

We've had the Mazda5 for 8 years - bought it at the height of the 2008 recession. It is fun to drive and easy to park on the crowded streets of Berkeley, California, where we lived at the time, and since it's so small, it gets decent gas mileage. But its limited cargo and passenger space, especially when loaded with 6 people and their stuff, made for some frustrating compromises. 

One of our children plays the cello, and it's not possible for us to take the family to one of her concerts while also bringing the cello, for example. My grandma wanted to give us her beloved heirloom china while we were visiting last Christmas, but there was just no way for us to fit anything else inside the van, so we had to decline. The final straw was that our three year old toddler keeps turning on lights inside the Mazda, and somehow we don't notice until the battery runs out. I suppose if we were more observant parents, or if we would just put duct tape over all the light switches, we could solve the problem, but it's been progressively more irritating. I'm especially irritated because I feel like this is a design problem could have been solved with a simple timer that wouldn't allow the car lights to stay on all night, but for some reason Mazda didn't include that circuit. The car is also just getting older - the suspension makes strange noises when we go over bumps, it doesn't have any USB ports, etc. So we've been looking for a replacement for a while.

I should say that the Mazda has been generally trouble-free for the 8 years and 72k miles we owned it. On long drives through the Nevada desert it would yield 25 MPG while cruising at 85 MPH with a cargo box on the roof. It's been parallel parked all over the SF Bay area, without problems. It's heard a good share of tears and laughter. We'll miss it.