 I have owned Hondas, VWs and Hyundais. This is my first Mazda and I am impressed now about 6k miles in and through the first recommended service.  I am approaching my review with a comparison to those types of cars, this is not a true luxury brand, so when I say things are "great", it is in comparison to say a Honda SUV, not an Audi.  If you pay 10k more for a car, you get more.  I find the ride, which for me is a mix of highway and local roads everyday, to be smooth and pretty quiet.  I am easily able to achieve the listed MPG  and typically land around 30ish.  Note that I do my own calculation based on miles traveled and gas put in as the onboard computer does over estimate by about 1mpg it seems.  I find the seats to be comfortable up front for me, although they are almost all the way back (im 6').  I have been able to fit a fair amount of stuff on a  trip to Lowes/Home Depot into this thing with the seats down.  Its not huge, but for standard household projects, it gets the job done.  So far zero issues in the world of maintenance.  On the negative side, and these are things you just have to decide if they matter to you are - no interior storage.  The cup holder locations are awful for any cup/mug that is sort of tall as it is under the front armrest.  The glove box is pretty much all you have aside from some small bins in the doors.  As mentioned, the backseat is cramped if you have people 5'9" or taller in the front.  you will nto be taking 4 adults on a road trip in this car with or without luggage.  The gas tank for the AWD version is 11.9 gallons.  Not a deal breaker for me, but with my old Hondas and Hyundais I could typically get close to 400ish miles per fill up, its 300 on this one AND the low fuel indicator is out of whack (several owners report this).  The "25 mile range" comes on for me when i estimate I have almost 75 miles left, and it shows zero range left and I can fill up to see there is still almost 2 gallons in the tank.  I have asked Mazda at my local dealership about this and they just shrug.  Overall I recommend the car, with the biggest note being, make sure the space is right for your needs.