2021 Mazda BT-50: Detailed walkaround review of the all-new Mazda BT-50 w/ Wireless Apple CarPlay

CarExpert

The all-new 2020 Mazda BT-50 is finally here! We get up close and personal with the new BT-50 for a detailed walkaround review to give you a better idea of what it's about. The new BT-50 comes with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus a host of standard safety equipment. Join Paul Maric for a detailed look at Mazda's new ute/pickup truck/bakkie!  More information on the all-new 2020 Mazda BT-50: https://www.carexpert.com.au/news/2020-mazda-bt-50-new-dual-cab-ute-revealed/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=hub-content&utm_term=new-mazda-bt-50&utm_content=&utm_campaign=other-story  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Engine: 00:38 Exterior: 01:26 Interior: 04:40 Infotainment: 05:48 Features: 08:02  Practicality: 10:04 Verdict: 12:49  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! #review #mazda #bt50  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  @mazdaaustralia

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. After over 30 years in a relationship, Mazda and Ford have broken up.

00:04 They used to develop a lot of utes, backies, pickup trucks, whatever you want to call them together.

00:08 Mazda has now teamed up with Isuzu for the all-new BT50. The new BT50 shares a platform

00:14 now with the D-MAX. Today we're going to have a first look at the BT50, have a detailed look at

00:20 what's inside and on the outside as well. Now if you would like to skip ahead to other parts of

00:24 this review you can use the time codes on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube just scroll

00:28 down and use the chapters below, and if you haven't done so already I'd love it if you could

00:31 hit the subscribe button and also press the bell icon so you can find out every single time we

00:35 review a relationship breakup. Let's start with the engine. So this is a brand new engine for

00:41 Mazda. It's shared with the D-MAX. It's a 3.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder diesel. It makes 140

00:46 kilowatts of power and 450 newton meters of torque. It's available with a six-speed automatic or a

00:52 six-speed manual, and I know what you're saying, "Wasn't the old BT50 147 kilowatts of power and

00:58 470 newton meters of torque?" Yes, that's right, but Mazda says that this car is lighter, which

01:03 means it should be quicker, and that also means that it will be launching down on its competitors.

01:07 The Ford Ranger is 500 newton meter output, the updated Hilux is a 500 newton meter output,

01:13 and the Colorado, which is now dead, is a 500 newton meter output as well. So it is interesting

01:18 that they've stuck an engine in here that is already technically slightly outdated, but we're

01:21 looking forward to seeing how it drives and whether it actually feels different behind the wheel.

01:25 Let's talk exterior. I hadn't seen this car in pictures before we got here,

01:30 and I had a really positive reaction. I think it looks fantastic. The last BT50 just looked too

01:35 happy-happy and just not too yooty-yooty and aggressive, so this actually looks really nice.

01:40 Let's have a closer look at the design. So this is Mazda's Kodo Design philosophy. It's a Japanese

01:46 term for the strategy they're using across their cars, and that means giant grille, giant logo,

01:52 and I really like the look of it. You've got these horizontal slats that run along the front of the

01:56 car, and they provide enough suction in for that engine, and then these fog lights sit nice and

02:01 wide down the bottom, so it draws your eyes down the side of the car, and there's tasteful use of

02:05 chrome around here as well that isn't too gaudy. You get front and rear parking sensors. There's

02:10 four parking sensors on the front and the rear, which means this car should be capable of doing

02:15 semi-autonomous parking. Up the top here, you have a full LED headlight assembly with a daytime

02:20 running light down here. Jump around the side here, the BT50 is going to launch in dual cab to

02:24 begin with, and three sets of wheels will be available ranging from 16 inches all the way to

02:28 these 18-inch alloy wheels here. Tell you what, good-looking wheel design as well. You've got that

02:32 brushed chrome look offset with the black, and then you have the centre hub cap there that has

02:38 the Mazda logo on it. So bigger front rotors, 320mm in size. That should mean that towing and

02:43 those things are going to be far easier. Let's have a look at the rest of the car. You've got

02:47 this chrome cap on the top of the mirror with the indicator built in. Got these sturdy-looking

02:52 side steps, a little bit more chrome on the door handles there, and then come around to the back

02:55 here, drum brakes, so no disc brakes. It is interesting that in this day and age that dual

03:00 cab utes are still using drum brakes even though disc brakes are so prevalent. I guess more off-road

03:04 focused utes like the Ranger Raptor have disc brakes at the rear instead of drums, so I think

03:08 they will eventually move to it, but I thought with the new generation they would have at least

03:12 gone with discs instead of drums. Come around to the rear. So this rear combination design is kind

03:16 of similar to the D-MAX there. They haven't really made anything too unique there. So you have your

03:20 stop lamp, an indicator, and then a reverse light as well, and then a proudly worn Mazda badge on

03:25 the rear with BT-50, and then 4x4 badges, and then chrome door handle there with the reverse

03:30 camera built into it. It all feels nice. They've got these metal hinges. There is no torsion beam

03:38 on here. With the new Ford Ranger they integrated a torsion beam to make the tray come down and go

03:42 up easier, so it is interesting that they haven't put a mechanism like that in just yet. Let's have

03:47 a look at the tray. So we don't have dimensions for this just yet, but I can see in here we have

03:52 tie-down hooks, but there's no 12-volt outlet or power socket in the back, which is a little bit

03:56 disappointing given some of the other utes in this segment feature that kind of technology.

04:00 And if we jump down here a little further, this section here is different colour to the actual

04:05 car itself, so there's a black highlight there with a step to get into the tray,

04:09 and then four more parking sensors, and then let's have a little sticky beak under the rear.

04:13 So again, without using rear disc brakes, they've gone with leaf springs, which is going to give

04:17 them the payload. The payload here is a little over 1,000 kilograms, so there's leaf springs

04:21 in there plus a damper as well, and then you can see the spare tyre wedged underneath the back of

04:26 the car. There's also 3,500 kilogram brake towing capacity. Let's talk interior. So we know that the

04:31 exterior has been styled by Mazda, but they've kind of adopted the D-MAX inside here, but rest

04:36 assured they have actually done some of this stuff themselves. So you can see the dashboard design

04:40 here is unique to Mazda. Some of these air vents look a little bit different, different steering

04:44 wheel, centre cluster as well. You also get this padding here, which you don't get on the D-MAX,

04:48 and I think they've tried to make it feel a little more premium than the D-MAX, because I suspect it

04:52 could be slightly more expensive when it does launch, but there's a lot of soft-touch materials

04:56 around here, which has me excited because we have our hardness tester. We use this for a bit of fun,

05:01 motoring journalists always go on about soft-touch materials, so we thought we'd get one and test

05:05 the interior out. So we'll switch that on. Measures from 0 to 100, where 0 is soft and 100 is hard.

05:11 Let's see what that looks like. Oh man, that is impressive. That is the softest of any we've ever

05:16 tested. What about this section here? That's not too bad either. Okay, the Mazda BT-50,

05:23 very soft on the inside. What about builds quality? Well, keeping in mind this is a

05:27 pre-production car, everything actually feels really nice and solid. Normally with these cars,

05:31 before they're released, they're very wonky and hand-built. This one actually feels really good,

05:35 so that is a positive sign of things to come. Moving on to infotainment now, this has me

05:39 excited because it's not often that we see a brand new infotainment system in a dual cab ute.

05:44 This is shared with the D-MAX, so today I'm going to do a detailed review of the infotainment

05:48 system so you can see what features it comes with. So it's a 9-inch infotainment unit with

05:52 shortcut buttons down the bottom, and those shortcut buttons go straight to navigation,

05:56 destination entry, maps, volume, audio, home, and then back. So let's jump through the menus

06:02 and see what it's like. We'll start off with navigation. So this is the in-built navigation

06:06 system. You can see that's sort of moving around pretty easily. Let's try putting in a destination.

06:11 My go-to is Melbourne Airport, so we'll see how quickly it allows us to put that in. M-E-L-B-O-U-R-N-E,

06:21 the suspense is killing me, airport, and then we'll do a search on that and see how it goes.

06:28 Ah, there you go, cool. So that's come up with everything there straight away, so that's really

06:33 good. Now here is the exciting part. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come standard, but it's wireless.

06:38 So this is the first dual cab ute in this segment to have wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

06:42 I'll show you what that looks like. Have a look at this. It is a full-screen integration,

06:46 so it takes up the entire screen. It's not boxed in, which a lot of these systems are.

06:50 Smooth and seamless as well, and then you can use that with the car's voice recognition system. So

06:55 one push of this sends commands through your phone, and it means that you're going to get

06:58 higher accuracy. You can send text messages while you're driving. You never really have to take your

07:02 eyes off the road. So it is exciting that this feature is going to be fitted as standard to the

07:06 BT50 and also the D-MAX. Now in terms of the other functions you have here, audio, it comes with AM,

07:12 FM, DAB plus digital radio, so you have the full suite of audio controls. You can see the source

07:17 list just here, radio, DAB plus, Apple CarPlay, and then hidden in the background there you also

07:22 have USB connectivity as well if you want to plug in a device to the car and play music from your

07:27 mobile device. Finally we have a settings menu. In the settings menu you can change all of the

07:32 car's settings, what it does when you connect a phone and all those preferences, plus you have

07:35 the ability to enable Wi-Fi within the infotainment system, so that's going to be a great feature to

07:39 have, and then also configure whether the camera has guidelines visible, and finally on the

07:43 navigation you can change everything from the guidance controls to whether it's going to pick

07:47 the fastest or slowest route and what it does when traffic comes into effect. So infotainment done

07:52 and dusted, what about the rest of the features that you're getting with the Mazda BT50? So it's

07:56 going to launch first with the dual cab, and the dual cab looks like it's loaded with a lot of

07:59 standard equipment. So down here, dual zone climate control, I love the feel of those buttons

08:03 down there, so your driver and front passenger can have different temperature zones. Beneath that

08:07 you have USB connectivity, an auxiliary port, 120 watt 12 volt power outlet. It doesn't look like

08:13 there's a CD player anymore, that looks like it's gone. Seat heating for the front row, you get front

08:17 and rear parking sensors which are activated up the front here. Hill descent control. Finally we

08:21 have a rear differential lock that's fitted to this car. Ahead of the driver is a 4.2 inch display

08:26 that shows things like trip computer and other critical car functions. Auto dimming rear vision

08:30 mirror. Finally we have automatic headlights and automatic windscreen wipers, yay, and on the

08:35 windscreen wipers, check this out, on the actual wiper blade they've integrated the washer jet

08:40 into the arm of the wiper blade, which means that you don't have it shooting up from the bonnet,

08:45 which helps with aerodynamics. Now let's talk safety technology, because this is important in

08:49 the dual cab segment. You've got autonomous emergency braking that pairs with radar cruise

08:53 control, which is set here on the steering wheel, plus you also have blind spot monitoring and a

08:57 lane keeping assistant. This car finally now also has an electrically assisted power steering rack,

09:03 which means that it's capable of doing semi-autonomous parking, which the old car never

09:07 could do. One of the features I love in the Isuzu D-MAX and the MU-X and the top spec models is

09:11 live surround sound. Check this out, this is included now in the BT52, so it's like a set

09:16 of speakers that sit above your head. Probably a bit of a gimmick, but cool nonetheless. And

09:20 finally, what does the key look like? Let me show you. So that's the key there. Now it's got a cool

09:25 function. It has a remote start feature, so you can start the car when you're not near it. Lock,

09:29 unlock, a blank button down the bottom, and then on the back you have the Mazda symbol. Now this

09:34 is a proximity key, but it works a little bit differently. If you have this in your pocket,

09:37 when you approach the car, you're within two metres of the car, it will automatically unlock.

09:41 Then when you leave the car, you have to be three metres away and it will automatically lock, so you

09:45 never really have to interact with the door handle, but you can if you need to. And then once

09:48 you hop into the car, you've got a start button to switch it on. By the way, sorry about the noise,

09:52 it just got noisy here all of a sudden. Let's talk practicality and we'll start off with storage.

09:56 Where is a tradesman going to keep all their stuff? So plenty of storage for a phone there,

10:01 plenty down there as well. So it does have wireless Apple CarPlay, but no wireless phone

10:05 charging. It's a little bit disappointing. What about for your dairy-ice coffee? Plenty of room

10:10 in there, and then in the door you have plenty of room for bottle storage, plus odds and ends

10:14 on the side. Then in terms of the rest of the storage, okay-sized centre console and a glove

10:21 box down here that's okay-sized as well. But check this out, you've got a second storage nook in

10:27 there. No air conditioning port though, but you can use that for storing bits and pieces. Now I do

10:32 like this though. The steering wheel is now reach and tilt adjustable. So previous generation

10:39 wasn't, so that is impressive to see. And if you do have sunglasses, you will store them in here.

10:44 Now what about comfort? Check these seats out. So they're perforated, it's a sports seat. I can tell

10:49 you right now, this feels fantastic. If I had to spend the entire day behind the wheel of this car,

10:54 these seats feel like they're going to hold me in nicely. They're nice and comfortable,

10:57 and with seat heating, I don't think I can complain much. Steering wheel is the perfect

11:00 size, and when the car's on, it now has electrically assisted power steering. It is super light.

11:04 Righto, second row, what's it like? Now before I hop in here and show you, have a look at this.

11:08 We have a couple of secret storage spots. So one under here, and then one under here as well. So

11:16 you can put little odds and ends in there, and you won't be able to see them from the outside.

11:20 And then finally behind here, you have your jack and other sort of critical items,

11:25 plus the top ten points for the second row of seats. Let's jump in and see what space is like.

11:31 Okay, so this seat is in my normal driving position, which is a little further back.

11:37 As you can see, it's pretty tight on knee room, but the bolsters on these seats are huge. There's

11:41 a little bit of extra padding there. Toe room is okay, but not amazing. Now there's some

11:46 interesting features in the back here. Check this out. You have a hook on the back of the seat,

11:49 maximum four kilos load. You then have a USB port over here for high amperage charging,

11:55 so that's 2.1 amps. Air vents, which is great news. Ice FX points on the two outboard seats,

12:00 and then centre armrest with two cup holders. We'll see how that works with our big bottle.

12:05 That all fits fine. And then you have bottle storage in the door as well. Got a giant grab

12:11 handle here too, in case you're going hardcore off-roading. So yeah, look, it's not a bad place

12:16 to be seated. There's enough room here for short journeys, and the seat feels really comfortable.

12:21 So this is normally where we go for a spin and show you what the car's like and how it drives,

12:25 but we can't today because this is a pre-production car. It's brand new,

12:28 all that sort of stuff. So this is what the BT50 sounds like when it's revving.

12:31 So that has been your first look at the all-new Mazda BT50, the pickup truck, the backy, the

12:44 ute, whatever you want to call it. It's a pretty impressive piece of kit. Lots of inclusions there.

12:48 I love the wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Also love all the safety equipment that

12:52 it comes with, and the design. It's a unique Mazda design, and it actually looks really good,

12:56 much better than the last generation. None of the panels are shared with the D-Max,

13:00 so it is very unique in that sense. Now, if you want more detail about the new BT50,

13:04 click up here to have a read of the story at carexpert.com.au, but we are looking forward

13:08 to having a drive of this, and very keen for your opinions. Let us know in the comments below. Do

13:12 you like the look of it? Could they have done more? Could they have done less? Would you like

13:15 more power? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. If you did enjoy this video,

13:18 I'd love it if you could hit the like button, follow it up with the subscribe, and also press

13:21 the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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