Mazda5 MPV (2010-2015) - Practicality & boot space

The Mazda5’s sliding doors are a real benefit when trying to cram your kids into the car in a busy car park and the seats can be reconfigured in a variety of ways. What lets the Mazda down, though, is sub-par boot space – it’s trounced by most of its competitors in this area.

Mazda5 interior space and storage

Despite the small centre seat, the Mazda5’s second-row seats are pretty practical, as they individually slide forwards and backwards and recline quite far too. The middle seat is more practical as a storage space, as it can be folded to make an in-car bin or flipped to provide a pair of cup-holders. When used as an actual seat, its lack of meaningful width means it’s only good for children that are too big for a child seat, but still small enough not to feel too uncomfortable on long journeys.

In total, the Mazda5 has 45 storage areas, which cover everything from a small glovebox to fairly average-sized door bins and underfloor storage in the boot. There’s also a little pocket next to the reading lights on the roof that’s perfect for storing your sunglasses.

Boot space

As with any MPV this size, with all the seats up luggage space is tight at 112 litres, but folding away the third row frees up 426 litres. Maximum capacity is 1,566 litres with all the seats down. The boot also has a hidden storage area under its floor.

While that’s a decent amount of room, the total space is nowhere near competitive with rivals. One of our favourite MPVs, the Citroen Grand C4 Picasso, has around 300 litres more space when all of the seats are down, while the Peugeot 5008 manages to blow the Mazda5 away, providing around 1,000 litres more space if all the seats are flat.