Just got this car last week and my first impressions are mixed. I previously had a Volvo S80 for 15 years.
On the plus side its a quiet car and the gearbox seems very smooth and its quite economical, although it is early days yet.
On the negative side there are a few more things to say. I'm a bit concerned about the visibility from inside - the A pillars seems to be very thick and the gap between the front and back windows seems to be very wide, plus the head restraints seem to get in the way - add in the darkened windows (mandatory on anything other than the most basic model - why? no one I've spoken to wants these things) and the somewhat not very deep glass and you seem to have a vehicle that is not the best in the world for seeing out of - this is particularly bad given the tendency of modern highways authoritys to widen junctions so that vehicles can turn left while you are patiently waiting for a gap to turn right in. The door mirrors are massive - do they have to be that big - again they restrict vision - particularly on the passenger side.
The steering is very light with very little feedback and the steering wheel is way too smooth - you have to grip it to use it. It needs the leather etching a bit to give it some tactile feel and it needs much better feedback not to mention 'return to ahead' capability.
The rear parcel shelf is way too high - at night it can be difficult to work out if there is a vehicle behind you because the headlights disappear form view when the vehicle gets close.
As for the lack of spare wheel at a reasonable price - this is nothing short of insane - how much would it cost Mazda to make the spare wheel well large enough to accommodate a full size wheel even if they do not want to supply it to meet the EU rules on emissions? It must be all of about 50p!!
Also why aren't heated front seats standard - I mean its not as if the UK is in the tropics is it - again the added cost at manufacturing time is about £5 per seat max.
The SatNav seems very iffy - mine would freeze for minutes at a time and 50% of the time show me travelling through green fields - after a software update (this is a brand new car) at the dealers it is a little bit better and can pick up 6 satellites (the app has space for picking up 12 according to the display). I'm not convinced this is fixed yet.
They really ought to have found a way of illuminating the controls for lights, wipers etc on the steering wheel stalks not to mention the knob for retracting the wing mirrors - this is possibly the most awkward to use control in the car - it takes at least two turns to get it to function in either direction. Much cheaper cars have this function performed automatically when you lock/unlock the vehicle - why can't Mazda do this on their top of the range model? My Volvo 15 years ago had a button you pressed not a knob that needs two turns to do this.
Overall its OK, but I had expected something just a little bit more refined - after all it is costing £25K.