I drove a 2012 Mazda 5 GS for two years and put 159,000 kilometers on it. My driving was hard on the car doing Saskatchewan highways and grid roads with a cleaning business.

Inspite of the poor roads and harsh weather my Mazda did remarkably well.

The Mazda 5 has great cargo/pasenger room for size, excellent fuel economy and amazing reliability.

I only have 2 complaints. My GS model did not have cruise control and that was a little bit of a disappointment during my numerous highway trips. Also the Mazda's bumper is a little two low to the ground. When driving to a farm on a dirt road my wheels dipped in a slight pit that was no problem for the Dodge Caravan, Ram pick up or even the Ford Taurus that the farmer and his family owned, but for my Mazda the pitting was deep enough to almost take the bumper right off my car. I got it fixed once and I think it cost me $700 and then a week later I was on another dirt road and the same thing happened to me again, so I just lived with it until I sold my car.

If you do city and paved highway driving only the low bumper won't be an issue. If you do a lot of back roads it will be an issue, but the truth it my done in bumper was not unbearable for me. The rest of the car was an absolute charm. Starting in -55 celsius weather was no problem, only needed maintenance, never an actual breakdown. Really an excellent car.

I owned a 2009 Chevrolet Uplander and found it completely uninspiring, but that being said if you need a cheap mini van and could get one at a low enough price I would not necessarily advise against buying one.

The 3.9 Liter engine is a gas guzzler but it is powerful and performs well.

The interior is cheap plastic and looks and feels awful.

Cargo space is ok, but rear seats were heavy and difficult to remove and put back in again.

My Uplander was reasonably reliable, but I did have to fix a few things.

All in all my Uplander was not unbearably bad. However, as soon as it got totalled in an accident 3 days ago I immediately started feeling better realizing that, that uninspiring, gas guzzling, slightly under performing box of metal is now out of my life.