Cross-Border Shopping? Mazda Canada Forges On With Same Ol' Mazda5 For 2017

Two years after reporting on its U.S. death, TTAC can now report the Mazda5 will live on in current form for at least another model year in Canada.

The 2017 Mazda5 is not yet featured on Mazda’s Canadian media site, but when asked by TTAC last week whether the one true remaining North American “mini”van would hold its place in Mazda Canada’s lineup, we received an affirmative response.

“We are continuing to offer the Mazda5 here in the Canadian market,” Mazda Canada’s director of public relations, Sandra Lemaitre, told us via email last Friday. “The 2017 model year Mazda5 began production in July, so it should be in dealer showrooms shortly. It will be a carryover product with no major changes.”

This is news that will excite seven Canadians, and perhaps nine Americans who are considering crossing the border for a USD-equivalent $18,555 manual-transmission mini-MPV.

Oh, no, one prospect just financed a 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan Canada Value Package interest-free over 84 months. And look over there: a Minnesotan just realized he might as well lease a six-seat F-150 SuperCrew south of the 49th.

Make it six Canadians; eight Americans.

To be fair, there are literally, well, dozens of remaining Mazda5 buyers in Canada. Mazda Canada is currently selling an average of 136 Mazda5s per month. But that’s half the number of Mazda5s that were being sold a year ago in Canada and well off the peak of 1,000 monthly Mazda5 sales in 2008.

Admittedly, the Mazda5 isn’t the only remaining mini-MPV in Canada. The Chevrolet Orlando is dead, but the Kia Rondo lives on in an iteration never sold in the United States. (Kia USA’s first attempt at selling Rondos expired in 2010.)

But unlike the Mazda 5, the Kia Rondo has not adopted traditional minivan characteristics: standard three-row seating and sliding doors. (The seven-seat Kia Rondo has a lofty CAD $27,735 base MSRP.) Though marginally more common than the Mazda5, Kia Rondo sales fell by 42 percent in Canada this year. Like the Mazda5, the Rondo is on track for its worst Canadian sales year ever.

Re-launched as an all-new vehicle for model year 2013, the Kia Rondo fights alongside a Mazda5 which has enjoyed updates but no major re-engineering since its 2005 launch.

Leftover Mazda5s are still leaving U.S. showrooms: 346 in 2016’s first seven months; 17 in July alone. The Mazda5 owned 4 percent of America’s minivan market in 2011; less than 2 percent of Canada’s minivan market today.

[Images: Mazda, Mazda.ca, Kia Canada]