Yeah, I also have the Mazda5 and I have to admit that 4 car seats would be difficult. The issue isn’t getting them all to fit, it’s getting kids in and out of them. The sliding doors are great, but you can’t pull up a mid-row captain’s chair once a car seat is buckled in and that means you’re not getting at the third…

Sorry, I’m calling bullshit on this. I’m 6'2" and more than half of my height is legs. I have no problems driving my Mazda5 and my knees don’t come anywhere near the dash. We use ours as our workhorse daily driver and long-distance cruiser. We regularly take several multi-day road trips in it every year.

Agreed - I’ve got a 2013 Mazda5 and we’ve been VERY happy with it. I’ve never had any problems with reliability, rattles, engine noise or anything else.

Only one kid and a 2013 Mazda5 here. It’s been incredibly reliable and we’ve been very happy with it. It’s fun to drive, faster than you’d think and handles more like a car than a minivan. Getting four car seats into might be tight, but you may just have to pony up for the better car seats.

Agreed. I had an ‘88 Sprint hatchback and I always lusted after the convertible. That said, the automatic is a dealbreaker as it completely destroys the fun that could be had wringing out the meager horsepower. For less than a grand I’d do it.

We’ll, since you issued the challenge...

Me too. I sat in one once in Las Vegas and it took me a good five minutes to get in and out. But in between the entrance and exit I fell deeply in love and had to be nagged into leaving. The price is fine, the color is fine and I’d end up driving it a few dozen times before reluctantly selling it for about the same…

It is nice to have the bodycams so we know about these things, but they are effectively useless if they don’t result in prosecutions. The cops have learned that they can literally murder people on camera and will never, ever, ever get in trouble for it beyond a symbolic slap on the wrist. Sure they’ll beat you and…

but 8 hours is beyond the limit

Wow, we actually got a cop charged with something? Surprising! He actually went to trial? Amazing!! He was actually convicted? Astonishing!!!! Will he be sentenced to anything other than a slap on the wrist? Maybe actual jail time?

Especially with the 5M tranny! Sadly I needed the premium trim for the leather seats (babies can be...moist) and had to take the automatic. Still a hoot to drive!

I love my Mazda5. It drives like a car and I tend to forget about the fact that it’s a big van sometimes. I stopped feeling even remotely unhappy about the fact that I bought a minvan when I found myself accidentally smoking a freaking Maserati on my daily commute. I’m driving that thing until it dies.

But you were fine with Texans demanding a political litmus test for Sandy, eh? Hypocrite.

You’re also failing your basic reading comprehension. I’m well aware of the fact that Houston is a blue island in a sea of red (in fact, I specifically mentioned that in the original post you couldn’t be bothered to read). I’m just pointing out that I can sympathize with those who can’t or won’t empathize with Texan…

And you’re obviously incapable of basic reading comprehension. My comment was pointing out that I can understand why some would be unwilling/unable to sympathize with Texans after the role their state is playing in the destruction of the United States. Your knee-jerk assumptions about me are more revealing of your…

Yay! some Red Cross exec just got a bit richer! And, depending upon how much you donated, some hurricane victim might get a bottle of water sometime in the future - assuming he’s near a news truck, that is.

Wrong - they are crooks. The new leadership over the last decade or so has completely corrupted this organization. They literally took billions of dollars to help rebuild Haiti after the earthquake and only built 6 new houses. No one knows where the rest of the money went.

Isn’t that what Texan politicians did when voting down aid to the liberal northeast after Sandy?

The fact that you consider your comment innocuous and that you consider ‘proper channels’ even slightly viable tells us everything we need to know about you. Our grandchildren will look at pictures of you beside pictures of the rednecks screaming at the Little Rock Nine and ask if both were taken from the same year.

Not any one car in particular, but Oldsmobiles in general. I nearly died in an Toronado a couple of times and my brother had an Achieva that was a terrible piece of shit that tried to fall apart every time he drove it. But those are really secondary to the entire brand. Basically, it’s a boring old person’s car that…