Daily is a Macan S. Other car is 991.1. Don't even think about it. Just get in and drive.
Daily is a Macan S. Other car is 991.1. Don't even think about it. Just get in and drive.
Tall vehicles suck to drive. There's no avoiding that.
Size is relative, right? I will say this. After driving the '74 Caddy, the CX-5 seems so small.
It's funny, we went from the CX-5 to the CX-50 because we felt the CX-5 was a little small on the inside for us. The CX-50 feels perfect in that respect.
I find it very easy to drive, as I did with the CX-5. It handles like a sporty sedan and feels a lot dynamically like my old WRX did. In sport mode, it feels like a sports sedan, with the steering tightening up and crisp throttle response. That makes it easier to wheel around than a lot of smaller cars IMHO.
I also learned to drive with a 1964 Buick Skylark, a 1992 Ford F150 4x4, and a 1986 Olds 98, so that helps.
I just can't get used to today's 'bloat-mobiles' . We used to have a late 90s Plymouth Voyager that would seat around 8 people, weighed just over 3500 lbs. and has stow-'n go seating that disappeared into the floor and left you with the entire rear area flat for carrying stuff. That is 1,000 lbs less than a modern Mazda CX9, which is 68.8" high x 199.8" long and 77.5" wide compared to the old Plymouth that was 64.7 H, 175" L, and 72" wide. The Plymouth had 140 cubic feet ot space behind the front seats and the CX9 has 71.2 cubic feet with all the rear seats folded,
Progress?
You definitely get used to things, but at the same time, I agree. The CX-5 is not particularly big, just tall. I dailied SUVs for a while then went to a large sedan. The driving position is dramatically lower which definitely feels better in many ways (although barely being able to see past a Miata at a traffic light does suck sometimes). Not much different in weight (maybe 200 lbs at most), although the sedan is significantly bigger. Most of the time you don't notice the extra size (especially with the different perspective of sitting lower), but occasionally on a narrow, windy road it starts to feel unwieldy where the Jeep never did on the same road at similar speeds (the actual size starts to matter here more than the height).
You do get used to it. I often go from one of my LBCs to my Grand Caravan, which is a fair bit larger than a CX-5. Although the most dramatic was going from my 1972 Triumph GT6 to the 1994 Dodge 2500 extended cab, 8' bed Cummins 4x4. But I also daily drove a full size 4x4 truck for years before getting back into cars. So in some ways getting back into a large vehicle with terrible sight lines feels a bit like going home. You definitely learn to drive with your mirrors more since just looking over your shoulder can be a recipe for disaster.
In high school, I spent a year or so dailying a 1972 Impala.
Fresh out of high school I spent a fair amount of time delivering line trucks and trailers all over the southeast. These with 40-60 foot pole trailers behind them.
Everything is tiny in comparison.
I don't even curb the wheels on my motorhome and it has a 261" wheelbase and a 40'10" length.
In traffic, I prefer a larger and taller vehicle. Better visibility. More presence. More likely to be seen by idiots. More room under the hood to mount a set of extremely loud horns to wake up the cell phone zombies.
More on the CX9...
When my wife's Grand Cherokee daily bit the dust, we were looking for a replacement that could also tow 3500 lbs. But we didn't want to go too big and were intrigued by the then-new crossovers. Tested out a bunch of smaller ones and saw the fresh CX9 sitting in the showroom with it's rather unique styling. It was way longer than we needed so I was reluctant to test-drive it. But...
It took just a few turns on local twisties to make me a convert. Lots of Zoom-Zoom DNA in that one. Served it's purpose for quite some time on her side of the garage. Now it's just an enclosed pickup truck for me.
Her current Macan GTS is only marginally better handling (it's basically a stretched Golf GTI).
Judging by a lot of the responses, I should have worded the title differently. It's not that I can't "handle it," I meant "handle" as in my preference is for much smaller, lower to the ground vehicles.
It's natural to feel more comfortable in a vehicle that's similar in size to that to which we are accustomed. As my daily is a CX-9, and I've made a habit of driving larger vehicles, I feel like I'm driving a clown car if I'm in something smaller than a mid-sized sedan. I do wish the large sedan was still a thing, but unless I'm springing for an S-Class Mercedes, my options are limited.
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