Our fleet: Mazda CX-5 Skyactiv-D 150 SE-L Nav - December 2015

Our long-term Mazda CX-5 recently reached its 10,000 milestone. Having had this car for just over a month now I feel I have familiarised myself with all it has to offer.

Our model has an extensive list of equipment, including 18-inch alloys, automatic xenon headlights, rain-sensing wipers, front and rear parking sensors, rear vehicle monitoring, a Bose sound system and a seven-inch touchscreen display.

One feature that has proved useful is the gear change indicator. We recently had a family day out to Leicester to tackle the joy of Christmas shopping and I envisaged the fuel economy would improve after this 85-mile round trip; I had only been achieving 42mpg up to this point. Disappointingly, consumption only improved by 1mpg.

However, with careful driving following the gear change prompts I have in the last week edged this up to a more respectable 44mpg. This is still a long way off the 61.4mpg Mazda claims for combined fuel consumption.

The journey to Leicester was pleasant enough. There was no moaning about space in the rear from my three teenagers. However, they very quickly realised that the car had no charging points in the rear, which gave them plenty to moan about. On the return journey home, as iPhone and iPad batteries began to fade, I ended up with various devices being intermittingly charged from the front. Changing gears with wires stretched out to the back is not recommended.

Before taking the keys to this car I had been driving the Ford Kuga 2.0-litre diesel. The vehicles are comparable in many ways. The Mazda CX-5, however, is more practical, with its 503 litres of boot space.  On our day out it comfortably accommodated all the shopping bags, coats and umbrellas from all five of us, with room to spare.