I'm not a fan of the MX-5 (Miata), I'll admit it. BUT, I haven't driven the new 2.0-litre and today I come here with an open mind to see whether it can change my mind. Paul Maric reviews the updated, more powerful 2020 Mazda MX-5 (Miata) RF in manual. Does it change my mind? Watch and find out!
The 2020 Mazda MX-5 (Miata) 2.0-litre has increased in power from 118kW to 135kW and it now has a better redline of 7500rpm (up from 6800rpm).
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:05
Interior: 02:54
Infotainment: 04:09
Features: 04:51
Practicality: 05:43
On the Road: 07:11
Verdict: 11:06
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The 2020 Mazda MX-5 (Miata) 2.0-litre has increased in power from 118kW to 135kW and it now has a better redline of 7500rpm (up from 6800rpm).
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:05
Interior: 02:54
Infotainment: 04:09
Features: 04:51
Practicality: 05:43
On the Road: 07:11
Verdict: 11:06
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you! #mazda #review #mx5
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
@MazdaUSA @mazdaaustralia
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul, and in the tune of giving you honest reviews, I have to be honest with
00:04 you, the MX-5 isn't my cup of tea.
00:07 It never has been.
00:08 But today, I want to see if I can change my opinion of this car.
00:12 This is the entry level to the MX-5 RF range.
00:16 RF stands for Retractable Fastback.
00:18 In Australia it starts off at just under $40,000, and you can see the entire MX-5 price range
00:23 in the comments below.
00:24 This car's remarkable because it has an incredible history and a lot of followers, but it also
00:29 starts at under 1,000 kilos, that's under a tonne, with the soft top.
00:33 And I find that incredible, and that means that you don't need a massive engine to get
00:36 thrills out of this.
00:37 And while I wasn't massively impressed with the 1.5 litre that I originally drove, this
00:42 has an upgraded version of the 2 litre and a manual transmission.
00:45 So I'm keen to see if it's any good and whether I'm going to like the MX-5 after this.
00:50 Now, you can jump ahead to other parts of this review by using the time codes above.
00:54 And while you're at it, I would love for you guys to subscribe to our channel, and also
00:58 hit the bell icon, because that's going to tell you every single time you come into the
01:02 Truth Bubble and we test a new car.
01:05 Let's talk styling.
01:06 The last generation of the MX-5 was the NC.
01:09 I still think it's a good looking car, but Mazda has really gone to town on this.
01:13 Have a look at this front end.
01:14 I mean, this is my opinion, but I reckon it kind of looks like a knife being thrown.
01:19 It looks like it's in motion, and it looks like you want to get out of its way.
01:21 And that is exactly what's happening here with all these lines that are cut out of it.
01:25 It looks angry.
01:26 The last generation MX-5 was sometimes criticised for looking a little bit soft.
01:30 This on the other hand looks aggressive and really sort of stands out in traffic.
01:33 I love the full LED headlights and the LED daytime running lights.
01:36 That comes standard on the RF, so that's really good to see.
01:39 And then you have this big gaping grille down here to suck air into that engine.
01:43 Round the side here, have a look at these wheels.
01:45 So 17-inch alloy wheels, and I love the design.
01:47 The black offsets beautifully with the colour of the car.
01:50 205 wide tyres.
01:52 These tyres do a really good job of holding the whole package together.
01:55 They also have a little lip on the edge, which means that black alloy wheel, you're not going
01:59 to damage that too much if you get close to a kerb.
02:02 Let's jump over here.
02:03 You can get a black pack for this car, which adds a black coloured roof, surprisingly enough,
02:08 and also Nappa leather seats inside.
02:09 A thousand bucks, so I think it's a really good investment.
02:12 The roof here is the alternative to the entry level, which is the soft top.
02:15 The soft top's manually operated, so you have to use your hand and lock it into position.
02:19 Whereas this one is electrically actuated.
02:21 You flick a switch in the car, but you can't open the roof if you're going any more than
02:25 10 kilometres an hour.
02:26 So keep that in mind.
02:27 You don't want to get stuck at a set of lights as it goes green, because it will just stop
02:31 working on you.
02:32 Come around to the back here.
02:33 I love this light design.
02:34 This really makes the car stand out at night, and again, it's a very simplified back end.
02:38 You've got a boot opening there, and I'll run you through how much space there is in
02:41 there shortly.
02:42 An antenna here.
02:43 Dual exhaust pipes as well.
02:45 It is a good looking unit, and the thing that I find interesting, when the car's in reverse,
02:48 the reverse lights are actually tucked under there, which is kind of cool.
02:51 So that really makes it stand out, even when it's reversing.
02:54 Let's chat interior.
02:55 I think a lot of people agree that for a cut and dry, cheap roadster like this, it just
03:00 needs to have all the essentials, and certainly Mazda has the essentials here.
03:04 But how does it look?
03:05 Well, I love this.
03:06 So body coloured inserts inside the cabin, and that kind of breaks apart the sea of black
03:11 here.
03:12 I wonder though, if you've got a black car, whether that would just blend in, but everything's
03:15 presented quite nicely, although when you do a further inspection, you can see that
03:20 the surfaces are quite hard.
03:21 I'm going to test that in a second with my hardness tester, but ahead of the driver,
03:24 you've got a cool LCD display that shows the car, and then you've got a binnacle there
03:28 for the revs and speed as well.
03:30 So look, it isn't the classiest cabin in the world, but it isn't the most expensive car
03:34 in the world either, and you're going to notice that a lot here with these seats too.
03:37 That cloth looks fairly nasty.
03:39 Now, let's have a look at the hardness of our dashboard.
03:42 We use this durometer to test exactly how hard the dashboard is.
03:45 It goes from 0 to 100.
03:46 0 being soft, 100 being hard, and I reckon it's going to give our durometer a run for
03:52 its money up here.
03:53 Have a look at this.
03:54 Push that down.
03:55 Wow, that has pretty much maxed out the durometer.
03:59 It doesn't go much higher than that.
04:00 Let's see what this center console's like.
04:04 That's nice and soft though.
04:05 So yeah, dashboard is fairly hard and scratchy and nasty, which is a bit of a shame.
04:09 OK, let's talk infotainment.
04:11 MZD Connect is the infotainment system.
04:13 It's a 7-inch unit.
04:14 If you want to see our detailed review of MZD Connect, you can click up here to watch
04:18 our full breakdown of it.
04:20 But the basics of this are FM, AM, DAB plus digital radio.
04:24 This also comes with satellite navigation.
04:26 This is a touchscreen as well, but it's not a touchscreen when the car's moving.
04:30 When the car's moving, you can only use these controls here with the shortcuts above them.
04:34 Outside of that, it's a bit of a clumsy system.
04:36 It does come with voice recognition, but the voice recognition really isn't very good.
04:40 It does, although, come with the ability to add Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which
04:43 is a big step forward for this system.
04:45 And fun fact, that's retrofitable to all cars or Mazda cars with MZD Connect as well.
04:51 OK, enough about infotainment.
04:52 Let's talk about the features you're going to get with your MX-5 RF.
04:56 And they start here with cruise control, fairly basic functionality, no radar cruise built
05:00 into that.
05:01 A manual mirror.
05:02 You don't get auto-dimming function on that, unfortunately.
05:04 You get a six-speaker stereo.
05:06 Stereo's OK, but it would have been nice to have a bit more sound in here while you're
05:11 cruising down the highway.
05:12 Single zone automatic climate control.
05:14 You've got two USB ports, plus an auxiliary outlet as well.
05:17 On the safety front, the MX-5 gets a five-star ANCAP safety rating, but it only comes with
05:22 low-speed AEB, so that's only going to work at city speeds.
05:25 This is what the key looks like.
05:26 It's a new generation of key.
05:28 While you can keep this in your pocket to start the car, it doesn't work as a proximity
05:32 sensor to enter the car, so you've got to get it out and manually use the buttons on
05:35 the side.
05:36 It rounds out the features.
05:37 Aside from your electric windows, reverse view camera, you don't get parking sensors.
05:41 There really isn't too much to talk about in the MX-5.
05:43 Where are you going to store your things?
05:45 There is no glove box there, so Mazda has instead moved the glove box from here to up
05:50 here.
05:51 That's got a lock on it as well, and you can kind of put little bits and pieces in there,
05:54 lock them away so they're safe and sound.
05:56 What about cup holders?
05:57 Well, you've got two here.
05:59 Fits a bottle nicely.
06:00 There's no cup holders in the door, obviously, and no door storage either, but I love this
06:04 feature.
06:05 You can move your cup holder to the front here if you want.
06:08 Only problem is, it's flimsy.
06:11 So yeah, OK, it holds a bottle, but if I had a coffee in there, I wouldn't be trusting
06:15 that with a couple of bumps on the road.
06:17 By the way, the steering now has reach adjustment, 30mm of it.
06:21 Never used to be able to do this, so that is a really handy feature.
06:24 What about room here?
06:25 If you're tall, you're going to struggle here.
06:27 One of my colleagues, Scott, is massively tall and he can't actually drive in this car.
06:31 The roof has to be off, otherwise it chops his head off.
06:34 So this clearly isn't a family SUV, so the 127 litres of cargo space you have in here
06:39 isn't going to exactly fit prams and all that kind of thing.
06:42 There is a button just under here to open that up, and as you can see, it is a pretty
06:46 small boot, but surprisingly big for this size of car.
06:49 There's also a light in here, just in case you ever need to do stuff in the back there.
06:54 So that's clearly not going to fit that bag, but I've got Igor's Pelican case here.
06:58 This is a carry-on bag size, just for reference.
07:01 That fits in like that, and then I can actually fit my laptop bag on top.
07:05 So there you go, that is actually a pretty versatile space for just everyday bags and
07:10 luggage.
07:12 So we've hit the road in the MX-5.
07:15 Let's talk about the standard stuff first.
07:16 So we've got the roof on at the moment.
07:18 We're going just for a normal drive on a country road here.
07:20 We're doing about 70 kilometres an hour.
07:22 What's the noise like?
07:23 Well, it's pretty quiet inside the cabin.
07:25 The ride is surprisingly good.
07:27 It's really nice and soft.
07:28 It's not firm, it's not jarring, it doesn't throw you about.
07:31 It's pretty comfortable.
07:32 I think if you had to live with this as a daily, this would be an easy one to go for.
07:36 In terms of the drivetrain, you can select from two different gearbox options.
07:39 You've got the six-speed manual, which is I think the better option to go for.
07:43 It's authentic, it's kind of what this car was built around.
07:46 Or you've got the six-speed automatic, and if you needed more of an excuse to go the
07:50 manual, we have an Instagram question from Quinton.
07:52 Does the car have an LSD?
07:54 So if you go the six-speed manual, yes, you get an LSD, but if you go the six-speed auto,
07:58 you get no LSD.
07:59 So make sure you go the manual.
08:01 So what's visibility like?
08:03 If you're driving this in and around the city, you're going to be surprised at how tight
08:06 the turning circle is.
08:07 You can virtually do a U-turn on a dime.
08:10 Visibility out the front is excellent.
08:11 The sides is good.
08:12 The wing mirrors are pretty small, so you can't really see a great deal there, and looking
08:16 out the back is kind of redundant as well, because there's not a whole lot to see there.
08:20 Thankfully, you do have that reverse view camera, but the camera isn't really too crash
08:24 hot.
08:25 Before we get into some of the sporty driving here, there's no sport modes or anything like
08:28 that.
08:29 You've got one driving mode to suit the lot.
08:31 The clutch.
08:33 This car is so easy to drive, so if you haven't driven a manual in ages and you want to kind
08:36 of step into a sporty car, the manual in this is super easy.
08:39 The clutch is light, very responsive, so you're not going to stall it all the time, and the
08:44 gearbox is fantastic.
08:45 It's a tight little gearbox, and you can just row through the gears.
08:48 There's a mechanical feel to it.
08:50 I really, really feel like I'm connected to the car.
08:53 So under the bonnet there is a naturally aspirated 2.0-litre petrol engine.
08:56 It makes 135 kilowatts of power, just over 200 newton metres of torque, and that's a
09:02 jump of about 15, 17 kilowatts over the last one.
09:05 So you're actually getting more power and slightly more torque now with this new 2.0-litre
09:09 engine.
09:10 Alrighty, what about the roof?
09:11 Let's take this thing off.
09:12 We've got an Instagram question here from Cooper.
09:15 How long does the roof take to come off?
09:16 So it is a 12-second ordeal.
09:19 Here it comes now.
09:20 This bit disappears in the one that doesn't have the auto roof.
09:23 It's just a hand job, so to speak.
09:26 There goes the back of it, and then it'll beep once it's done.
09:29 You get this cool animation here as well.
09:31 There you go, operation complete.
09:33 Okay, roof is down.
09:35 This is what the MX-5 is all about.
09:36 Oh, that sounds good.
09:38 Peak power is at about 7,000 rpm, and when the roof is down, it actually sounds pretty
09:43 impressive.
09:44 Inside the cabin, you're getting that rush of air, and even at the speed limit, even
09:48 at country speed limits as well, you're not getting a massive amount of wind through the
09:52 cabin.
09:53 The steering is so direct.
09:55 Oh, man.
09:56 I literally feel like I am turning those wheels with my fingers.
10:01 You feel completely in control of everything that the car's doing, and the way that it
10:05 just flows through corners.
10:06 You can roll onto the throttle, and it is just confidence-inspiring.
10:10 It is sensational.
10:12 I think I'm being humbled here by the MX-5.
10:14 Despite the fact that it has a little bit more body roll than I'd like, it's such a
10:18 communicative driving experience, and I think for the genuine car enthusiast, as a base
10:24 proposition, this has more than enough guts, and then you can do some work to it on your
10:28 own to extract every little bit from that chassis in the drivetrain.
10:31 I don't know about the brakes here, though.
10:33 The pedal feel is okay, but looking at the size of the brakes, I don't know how they
10:37 withstand a fairly serious track day.
10:40 Yes, the car doesn't weigh much, but they look a little Mickey Mouse.
10:44 The other thing that I'm hating here is the steering with regards to turning left.
10:49 This is like the fourth Japanese car we've driven now with this consecutive issue.
10:54 I just can't turn left because there's always a centre console or something in the way.
10:58 It's almost like the Japanese market doesn't have elbows.
11:02 It's seriously weird, and it makes driving this around left-hand turns a little tricky.
11:07 Okay, I like the MX-5.
11:10 I think I know what it is.
11:11 When I first drove this car, it was with the entry-level 1.5-litre, and I just felt it
11:16 didn't have enough go.
11:17 This 2.0-litre completely solves that problem, especially now that it has more power and
11:21 a little bit more torque as well.
11:22 The things that I don't like is the body roll.
11:25 There is a lot of body roll, and I think that's what causes this to become a little bit sketchy,
11:28 because you're unloading weight, you're putting less weight onto rubber, which means you get
11:32 less traction, and as a result, it becomes a little bit funny to drive, especially when
11:36 it is in the wet.
11:37 But, I think if you did buy it, you could make changes to it fairly easily, and if you
11:41 did buy it, you're getting a five-year warranty from Mazda.
11:43 It's pretty cheap when you consider the amount of thrills that you get.
11:46 You can go to track days, it's cheap to service, it's cheap to run because it doesn't use much
11:50 fuel.
11:51 There really isn't much to not like about it.
11:53 If there was another criticism I could think of, it's the lack of rear parking sensors.
11:56 Yes, I know that it has a camera, but the camera is pretty crap, and then that means
12:00 when you are parking, it's a bit hard to judge distances, especially if you're in a dark
12:03 car park or something like that.
12:05 So, outside of that, this is a really fun car, and if, like me, you thought that it
12:09 was a bit soft around the edges, you've got to go have a drive of one, especially in the
12:13 2.0-litre.
12:14 Would I get the RF or the soft top?
12:16 I'd probably just get the RF because the whole concept of manually closing a roof just seems
12:20 like a little bit of a cop-out to me.
12:22 I know it's less weight, but at the end of the day, I want to be able to flick a switch.
12:26 So, that is a review of the MX-5.
12:28 Let me know in the comments below, what do you think of the MX-5?
12:31 Did you buy one, and what have you done to make it track-ready?
12:33 I'm keen to see what people are doing.
12:35 Get in touch with me on Instagram to show me some pictures of your track-ready MX-5.
12:39 In fact, Igor, our cameraman, he drives a very nice MX-5.
12:43 What is it, Igor?
12:44 An MB, and it has a roll cage for the occasional time he goes near a track.
12:48 So, let me see your pictures.
12:50 If you did enjoy the video, please hit 'like', don't forget to subscribe to our channel,
12:54 and also press the bell icon as well.
12:55 It's going to let you know each time I change my mind on a car, and then grow to love it
13:01 a little bit more.
13:02 So, until next time, drive safely.