2021 Mazda CX-9 LE review: 6 seat luxury version! The luxxest sub $80k SUV in 2021?

CarExpert

This Mazda has captain's seats in the second row! They recline electrically and have both heating and cooling. The 2021 Mazda CX-9 Azami LE has stepped it up a notch with a super luxury take on the family hauler. It also comes with a new and larger infotainment system. Paul Maric tests out the updated Mazda CX-9 to see if it's any good.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Read the full review: http://car.expert/2021-mazda-cx-9-review  More Mazda content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda More Mazda CX-9 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda/cx-9  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:02 Interior 03:17 Infotainment 04:52 Safety Tech 06:35 Practicality 07:41 On the road 14:07 Verdict 19:25  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!  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  #mazda #review #cx9 #cx9le

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So we've reviewed the Mazda CX-9 before, but it's just had an update,

00:05 and this one is a little bit special because

00:08 it has some luxury seats in the second row. It's got these captain's chairs.

00:12 So I wanted to get behind the wheel of this, have a look at some of the new features,

00:15 and also have a look at some of the luxe stuff inside the cabin. This is the very top spec.

00:21 It's called the Azami LE. It's priced at just under

00:26 $40,000, but if that's a little bit too much, the whole range begins at a little under

00:30 $46,000. This competes with things like the Kia Sorento, the Hyundai Santa Fe, the Nissan Pathfinder.

00:37 There are a lot of SUVs in this segment. They're all seven-seat SUVs.

00:42 Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car.

00:45 If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,

00:47 you can use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:52 And if you haven't done so already, make sure you hit subscribe and press the bell icon,

00:56 so you can find out every single time we drive a luxury SUV.

01:00 Let's talk exterior. So you've got eight external colors to pick from, and all the metallic colors except silver are

01:07 $495 extra. Okay. Now let's talk design.

01:11 So not a great deal has changed with the CX-9 over the years,

01:15 but they have refined the styling a little bit to get to the point where we are today.

01:18 So you've got this whopper of a grille here, you've got these sort of graphite colored inlays,

01:24 and then you have this front end that kind of drops down and cuts in.

01:28 It's got quite a defined front on it, and this matches a lot of other Mazda vehicles.

01:33 So all they've done is just increase the size of the things until they get to the CX-9,

01:38 but it does carry the same styling elements as some of the other cars in the Mazda range.

01:42 Big Mazda logo up the front there, and then chrome trimming around the bottom sides.

01:47 Now in terms of headlights, you have adaptive LED headlights with an LED daytime running light in there as well.

01:53 The blanked off section down here, more chrome down the bottom,

01:57 whip around to the side, where you will find your 20-inch alloy wheels. I really like this look. It is

02:03 kind of a dark matte finish, but it still has that gloss element in it.

02:08 It just really gives this car quite an elegant appearance, and I think if you see this out on the road,

02:13 this does feel quite sophisticated and

02:16 a lot of effort has gone into styling all parts of this car.

02:19 So I like those wheels. Decent profile rubber there, which means this should ride well.

02:23 And then you also have a little bit of plastic cladding on the side there, so people know that you're driving an

02:29 all-wheel drive SUV.

02:31 You've got your indicator built into here, a camera in the side there for the 360 camera.

02:36 No roof rails or roof racks, but you do get a sunroof up there. And come around to the rear,

02:41 a little bit more chrome along the back here. You also have LED taillights.

02:46 Now, the interesting thing here with the CX-9 is you don't see the grade of the car anywhere.

02:50 So you've got SkyActiv-G, which is the engine type.

02:53 You've got CX-9 and all-wheel drive, but it doesn't say a zombie.

02:56 You don't really know how much you've spent on this.

02:58 I think that's good if you're at the lower end of the price bracket, where you haven't spent much,

03:02 but if you're spending over 70 grand on it, you kind of want people to know that you've spent a little bit extra.

03:07 So let me know what you think about the styling in the comments section below.

03:10 Do you think it's getting a little bit dated, or do you think this is still a good-looking SUV?

03:15 Let me know your thoughts. We are inside the CX-9. Let's kick things off with the key.

03:21 And this is what it looks like. You've got the Mazda logo there, a little bit of brushed chrome,

03:25 nothing on the back. All your buttons are located on the sides. You have lock, unlock, boot, and it's a proximity sensing key.

03:32 So leave that in your pocket, and then when you hop in, you have a push button start up the top there.

03:36 Now, in terms of styling, the big difference you'll see here is with the infotainment screen.

03:41 It just looks so much more cohesive up the top of the dashboard there, and we'll run through that in a bit more detail in just a second.

03:46 But standard Mazda form, all of this feels really nice in terms of fit and finish.

03:51 I'm not a huge fan of the piano black around here. That's already marking and getting dirty.

03:57 And I also wonder why they went with this

03:59 sort of faux carbon material here,

04:02 given that they've gone to the effort of using real wood around this center console and along the doors.

04:06 Would have been nice to see a shade of wood there.

04:09 But you will notice if you look really closely, it goes from being quite dark and black to this brown material that follows through the

04:15 wood and then onto the seats as well.

04:17 So I think they've put a lot of effort into styling this and giving it that really luxury appearance,

04:22 which is what you need when you're carrying a price tag this big. Now, what about all your touch points?

04:28 Well, that is super soft up the top there and also on the door as well. We have our geometer.

04:34 We've tested the main surfaces in this car. If you want to see how this compares to other cars that we've tested before,

04:38 use the link in the description below. Now, what about build quality? Well,

04:42 generally Mazdas are pretty good. I'll do my shape test here. It all feels

04:48 fine to me. So big tick for build quality. Okay, let's talk about infotainment.

04:54 So this is the big change to the interior and one that I'm a big fan of. If you saw our previous review of the CX-9,

05:00 I complained that the old MZD Connect system just looked a little bit cheap and nasty sitting here.

05:05 Now, we do have a review of this new system.

05:08 So if you do want to watch a detailed review of this, click up here.

05:11 But today I'll just give you a brief overview.

05:13 So this is what it looks like on the map menu and you drive the entire infotainment system down here.

05:18 It's not a touchscreen like MZD Connect was. You can sort of zoom in and out. You can see that's nice and quick.

05:23 You've got shortcut buttons as well. So if I jump to home, you can see there you can switch between the menus.

05:29 You have AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio plus a 12 speaker Bose branded sound system.

05:35 You also get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Keep in mind both of those are wired.

05:39 I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like. Full screen integration. It looks really nice.

05:44 There is one problem though. So because it's not a touchscreen, you have to use this scroll wheel thing to get between all the menus.

05:51 You can't even go to different pages by pushing it across.

05:54 And it can be a little bit fiddly if you're trying to use it on the move.

05:57 So it takes a little bit of patience to get where you need to go to. So only downside to this integration.

06:03 I think they could have done that a little better. And this is what Android Auto looks like.

06:07 Interesting that it's not a full screen integration. It sort of cuts off a little bit there.

06:11 Let me just see what this is like.

06:14 The same sort of story. You've got to scroll through all these menus, but it looks like you can configure what's going on over here.

06:20 So yeah, look, it's good. It just doesn't feel as sharp and honed as Apple CarPlay.

06:26 Now if you do want to see a comparison we shot between Apple CarPlay and Android Auto just to see differences between those technologies,

06:32 click up here to watch a video we shot earlier. Let's talk about safety.

06:36 Some of the key features include front and rear autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.

06:41 You get this frameless auto dimming rear vision mirror.

06:44 You get lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant. Radar cruise control, blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror.

06:51 And you also get a driver attention monitor as well.

06:54 In terms of parking technology, you get front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera.

06:59 Let's have a look at the quality of that.

07:01 There it is there.

07:03 Look, the quality isn't amazing. You can see there. It's quite grainy. It's not really that impressive.

07:09 But you get these guidelines. You also get the 360 portion over here.

07:13 It is a bit hard to make out what's around the car, but it's there nevertheless.

07:16 Then another push of the view button adjusts those views to an ultra wide angle.

07:21 And you can also see the view over the tires as well, which makes parking a little bit easier.

07:25 Now before we go on, I've got a question.

07:28 CX-9 owners out there, do you reckon this is big enough of an update to justify upgrading your current CX-9?

07:35 What do you think Mazda could have done a little bit more? Let me know.

07:37 Practicality. Let's talk about connectivity.

07:43 So in the center console here, you have two USB ports. One of those is for your smartphone mirroring.

07:49 You can use the other one for charging. Down here, you've got a 12 volt outlet. Now, what about your phone?

07:54 Where are you going to pop that? Well, that easily fits there inside the cup holder.

07:58 You've got storage down the bottom here for your phone, but you also have wireless phone charging.

08:02 So you stick that on the pad and that will kick off as well, which is a useful addition. And what about your coffee cup?

08:08 There we go. That fits in there beautifully. We'll try our bottle as well.

08:12 It fits in there easily and you've got teeth on the side there to hold it into place.

08:17 This also fits inside the door, but we've got our big bottle to test now. Here it is. Let's see if that fits inside the door.

08:24 Hey, that fits in nicely. So good. If you've got a big water bottle, that's not going to be too much of a drama.

08:31 Now to give you an idea of the depth of this center console, it looks huge because it sits up high,

08:37 but it's not quite that deep. So if I put this in,

08:39 it sort of doesn't really go that far. So I think that storage spot in the center could be a tiny bit bigger.

08:46 Let's have a look at the glove box.

08:48 It's okay. It's not the biggest glove box I've ever seen, but it fits our bottle plus the manual.

08:53 And then finally you have a sunglasses holder up the top here.

08:56 Now in terms of comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control up the front here.

09:02 There is a third zone of climate for your second and third rows.

09:05 You also get heated and cooled seats, a heated steering wheel for those chilly winter mornings. In terms of the seats themselves,

09:12 Nappa leather and it's a brown seat, which is interesting. It sort of looks black from a distance, but it is brown.

09:18 You get the perforations in there plus the diamond stitching too.

09:22 So it is a super premium looking seat. Electric seat adjustment for the driver and front passenger with memory for the driver.

09:28 You get a sunroof up the top here. Then the steering wheel itself is a nice size, sits well in the hands.

09:34 You've got paddle shifters behind the steering wheel and then all of your controls are easy to reach while you're driving.

09:39 Okay, back seat. So this is what makes the limited edition so special because instead of having seven seats,

09:46 you have six. Now you might be asking what is the point of all that? It is because it's a little bit more luxurious.

09:52 So let's start with the amount of room we have back here. So like you can see, decent amount of legroom.

09:57 I have heaps of knee room there, lots of toe room.

10:00 Headroom is pretty decent as well. And I've got my seat pretty much all the way back. So that's good.

10:06 Now this six seat layout means you get this center divider here. This can't become a seat.

10:10 This is just permanently here. That comes with two cup holders and then also this center slot here.

10:16 So let's start with our drink bottles. We'll see how they fit. So that fits in normally. That also fits easily in the door.

10:23 But let's see if our whopper fits here and in the door. So it doesn't fit there, but

10:28 it does fit in the door, which is pretty good. The seats themselves can electrically

10:34 recline and also move forwards and backwards. In addition to that, they are heated and cooled.

10:40 So it means that you do get that little bit of extra comfort.

10:42 You have air vents down the bottom here with an additional zone of climate, so you can

10:47 adjust the temperature and all that kind of thing there. The center armrest also includes a really deep cavity with two

10:53 USB ports as well. And then down the bottom you have additional storage as well. Dual-tiered mat pockets.

11:00 ISOFIX points on these two outboard seats. And then you also have a manually retracting blind.

11:06 It is a little bit dark in here though because of the dark colored seats.

11:10 There's no sunroof in the back here and you get this black headlining. So it would be nice to see maybe an additional

11:15 glass roof here or something like that. Just add a bit of light to the cabin.

11:18 Okay, time for the third row. How does all of this work? So being an electric seat,

11:24 it means you need to use the mechanism built into it. So one push and hold of this begins the process.

11:30 Now I have to warn you, it is a very long process.

11:32 Yep, you don't want to be in a hurry

11:40 anytime soon. Anyway, so yeah, this moves everything forward on its electric rails and then you hop in there.

11:47 Let's see how much room there is for an adult.

11:49 Okay, so the process for closing this is a push and hold of this.

11:54 It beeps and then it starts coming back. Again, another lengthy process.

12:00 Mm-mm-mm-mm.

12:01 Gets to there and then you manually pull this back. Then your passenger can move the seat accordingly.

12:06 So Igor, do you want to just shift that seat back into a comfy position?

12:09 Okay, yep, that'll do. And then seat back.

12:14 All right, that'll do me there. Okay, so you can see there I've got a reasonable amount of knee room. Toe room is terrible though.

12:24 They're sort of wedged right under that seat.

12:26 Headroom isn't great either. You do get cup holders off to the sides here.

12:31 They'll fit your bottle easily and you also get two 2.5 amp USB ports either side.

12:36 Now the interesting thing is this is bigger than something like a Hyundai Palisade, but the Palisade offers more room.

12:42 So it is curious to me that perhaps these captain's chairs limit the amount of legroom you have in here for adults.

12:48 It is a little bit squishy. Okay, cargo space. Let's have a look at how much we're working with here.

12:54 Crack this boot open. So with your third row in place, you have around 200 litres of cargo space.

13:01 So that's this slot in here. Under the cargo floor, you have a space saver spare tyre with storage on either sides.

13:08 12 volt here plus hooks.

13:10 We'll see if it fits our luggage and I'm curious to see if it fits this suitcase.

13:14 Nah, that's not going to fit. Okay, a little bit disappointing.

13:22 Once you fold the third row though, just by pushing that out of the way,

13:27 it exposes you to about 800 litres of cargo space.

13:31 We'll whack these bags in here to give you an idea of what that looks like.

13:34 There you go, stacks of room in there.

13:37 Finally, if you do fold the second row out of the way as well, the space increases to about 1600 litres.

13:44 But keep in mind those captain's chairs, they don't really fold flat.

13:48 So I'll show you what it looks like when they're out of the way.

13:50 (door slams)

13:52 So you can see here with these seats out of the way, it's not really the most practical space.

13:58 You've got this in the way and it's, you know,

14:00 it's not going to be as useful as a standard seven seat CX-9 where you can just fold everything

14:04 and you've got a bigger space to work with.

14:06 So we're on the road in the CX-9 and

14:10 first thing I've noticed is I can't really turn left because my elbow was wedged up against that centre console.

14:17 I remember having this issue in the first one we tested and subsequently in a few other Japanese cars.

14:22 So I don't know if it's my freakish arms or something, but yeah, I don't quite fit for a left-hand turn.

14:26 Under the bonnet is a two and a half litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine.

14:32 Unlike a lot of the other competitors in this segment, Mazda doesn't do a diesel for the CX-9.

14:37 So this is the only engine that we get, but it's not a bad thing because it produces

14:41 170 kilowatts of power and

14:44 120 newton meters of torque. So this is about where you'll find a lot of the four-cylinder diesels in this segment

14:50 anyway in terms of torque. So you get the benefit of having that petrol free breathing engine

14:54 and you don't have to be sort of limited by the whole diesel thing when it comes to torque.

15:00 And that's all mated to a six-speed automatic transmission. It's a standard torque converter,

15:06 so no dual clutches here.

15:07 You can manually shift gears here on the steering wheel using the paddle shifters and you've also got a sport mode

15:13 which I'll run you through in just a sec. Fuel economy comes in at nine litres per 100 kilometres.

15:18 That was the official claim. Let's have a look at what we're sitting on here.

15:21 10.9 litres per 100 k's and that's on a really long duration. It's about 2,700 kilometres.

15:28 So I think that's a good indication of where you'd expect this car to sit with a lot of city driving

15:33 and I really don't think that is a terrible figure for a turbo petrol engine.

15:37 Now, how does it all feel behind the wheels? So we'll give it a little squirt.

15:41 Yeah, it's really good. This brings back memories of why I like this car so much.

15:46 It's really torquey and everything's quite urgent.

15:49 There's really very little turbocharger lag and the gearbox is quick and eager to respond.

15:54 It means that when you do need a little bit of oomph, it just gets in there.

15:58 And we have a sport mode as well. I'll flick that on.

16:01 I guess I can see there it's already started giving me a sharper throttle response.

16:07 It actually feels really nice. Now, all of that torque is sent through an all-wheel drive system.

16:12 It's an on-demand all-wheel drive system.

16:14 So most of the time it's going to be sending torque just to the front wheels and then it will

16:18 engage the rear axle when required.

16:20 There is also an off-road mode down here that allows you to adjust the traction controls and give you better torque split when you are

16:27 off-roading.

16:28 Mazda doesn't have an official 0-100 time, but we thought we'd put it up against the stopwatch anyway to see how it goes.

16:35 [Engine revs]

16:37 You're not going to be doing any serious off-road driving in your CX-9, but it does have 222 millimeters of ground clearance.

16:51 That's going to be enough to get you to campsites and very basic mild off-roading.

16:56 And with that off-road mode, it means it shouldn't get too easily stuck and it'll be more

17:01 encouraged to use the all-wheel drive system and limit the amount of stability control intervention.

17:06 If you are doing any towing, there is a 2000 kilogram brake towing capacity.

17:11 So it's not a huge amount, but you wouldn't expect a huge amount of towing capacity in a seven-seat SUV like this.

17:17 Righto, let's talk about handling. One of the things this car has to its advantage is the fact that it is

17:24 fairly light compared to other SUVs in this segment.

17:27 And then when you do tip it into a corner, you feel that behind the wheel,

17:31 but the problem is it has a fair bit of body roll. It's really being tuned for comfort as opposed to sportiness.

17:37 And I think that's where the difference is between this and other SUVs like the Hyundais and Kias, which are specifically tuned for our market.

17:44 So it's not a sports car. It doesn't really handle all that well,

17:47 but it will be comfortable if you do go through a few corners.

17:51 And that brings me to the ride, and that's where that dialed-in ride comfort eliminates your

17:58 handling prowess.

17:59 But it means that when you are driving in and around the city, the ride is fantastic.

18:03 And that certainly translates out here when you are sort of on a country road, you're hitting potholes. Everything feels nice and compliant.

18:09 What I would like to see though, and something we haven't had a chance to do here, is what this feels like with six

18:13 people on board in this particular configuration.

18:15 Because an engine like this feels good now when it's just me and Igor in the car, but load it up with people and they

18:22 can start feeling like they're struggling a little bit, especially if you are towing something as well.

18:27 I'll just quickly touch on steering as well. It's interesting because it's an electrically assisted steering rack,

18:32 but they've dialed a bit of weight into it. So it kind of feels a little bit sporty, which is good.

18:36 It just feels a tiny bit heavy at low speed.

18:39 So when you are doing u-turns and manoeuvres like that, you can just feel a touch overweighted.

18:44 Okay, let's talk turning circle. 11.8 metres.

18:48 What does that mean? It's not the world's tightest turning circle,

18:52 but generally with these all-wheel drive cars, they take a little bit more room to turn around.

18:56 So if you are in and around the city, it's probably going to mean three-point turns every now and then. Now on the visibility front,

19:02 you can clearly see down the front of the bonnet there, but keep in mind that that front end extends a little further.

19:07 So the fact that this has front parking sensors is going to make parking in and around the city easier.

19:12 And then these wing mirrors are big enough with the blind spot monitor to make sure you catch everything. In terms of rearward visibility,

19:17 it's good, but not amazing when you have the third row in place.

19:20 You can see the heads of the third row seats kind of block your vision a little bit.

19:25 [Music]

19:27 So Mazda CX-9, the more expensive version. What do we think of it? I like it. I'm a really big fan of it.

19:34 So you're getting, I guess, the executive jet of SUVs without having to spend mega money for something like a GLS.

19:41 So this is a big SUV. You get your seven seats and now you can option it with these captain's chairs.

19:47 I love the fact that they recline and they're heated and cooled. It really just adds an extra premium touch to the CX-9.

19:53 So yes, it is a lot of money, but it is less money than what you would spend on an equivalent European car.

19:59 It still drives really nicely. It's got a punchy engine and I think that despite its age, it still feels nice and modern inside.

20:05 So yeah, all positives, but yeah, it just puts a big smile on my face.

20:09 So let me know in the comments section below. What do you think about the Mazda CX-9? Do you own one?

20:13 How's it been? Are you enjoying it? Would you buy a new one? Very keen for your feedback.

20:17 If you did enjoy this video, make sure you share it with your mates. Hit the like button.

20:21 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press that bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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