2021 Mazda CX-5 turbo review: Now with bigger infotainment!

CarExpert

The Mazda CX-5 has been updated with a new infotainment system. The old MZD Connect system is gone and Mazda has replaced it with a big new infotainment system for the 2021 Mazda CX-5. Is it any good? Paul Maric tests out the 2021 Mazda CX-5 Akera to find out.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Mazda content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda More Mazda CX-5 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda/cx-5  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:52 Interior: 02:37 Infotainment: 04:03 Features: 05:26  Practicality: 06:08 On the Road: 09:57 Verdict: 15:22  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 #cx5 #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So the Mazda CX-5 in Australia is one of the most popular

00:03 mid-sized SUVs on the market and it did benefit from a little bit of a facelift

00:08 not that long ago, but the interior didn't get updated. Well, that has all

00:11 changed now. Today we're checking out this. This is the top specification CX-5

00:16 Akira. It's priced at just under $52,000. If this one's a little too expensive, the

00:21 entire range starts at just over $31,000, so there are a lot of options in that

00:26 segment. It competes with things like the Nissan X-Trail, the Hyundai Tucson and

00:30 the Toyota RAV4. Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car. If you

00:35 want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes on the

00:39 screen or if you're on YouTube just scroll down and there's chapters below

00:42 there and if you haven't done so already make sure you subscribe to our channel

00:46 and press the bell icon so you can find out every single time we drive cars that

00:49 have been updated a little bit. Let's talk exterior. So you've got nine colors

00:54 to pick from and all of the metallic colors except silver are about $500

00:59 extra. Let's look at the design for a second. So I mentioned earlier that this

01:02 got an update a little while ago. I think it was at the LA Motor Show that they

01:06 rolled out a bit of a sort of nip and tuck to it, but it's remained fairly

01:09 unchanged since then and I don't think that's such a bad thing. You can see the

01:13 face of this car has kind of grown with the rest of the family. The CX-9 looks

01:17 fairly similar, the CX-3 looks kind of similar as well, so they're all following

01:20 that same design trend which is a big grille there and the grille has that 3D

01:25 effect with a giant Mazda logo there and then chrome lashings around the side of

01:30 the grille. This is in addition to features like full LED headlights and on

01:35 this one here in particular, the top spec, it has active shadowing so that's

01:38 technically the matrix LED function that you see on more expensive cars today. So

01:43 it's a good technology to see, LED fog light down there as well. If you do want

01:46 to see a video that we shot comparing headlight technologies and exactly how

01:50 this stuff works, click up here to watch that video. Down here you've got 19 inch

01:55 alloy wheels. I quite like this design, it's like a shadow chrome so it blends

01:58 in really nicely with the car's body paint and it's just a little bit

02:02 different to the rest of the wheels on the market today. They haven't gone too

02:05 crazy here with the wheel arches, I think in the CX-30 they take up like 90% of the

02:10 side of the car, whereas this is quite modest and actually looks pretty classy

02:13 which is good. Around the side here you have an indicator built into that wing

02:17 mirror, there's a 360 camera slotted into there. You have a sunroof here on the top

02:21 spec model. You've got a shark fin aerial up the top there, LED taillights. Let me

02:26 know in the comments section, do you think the CX-5 is getting a little bit

02:29 dated in terms of design? If you look at the rest of the competitors in this

02:32 segment, they've kind of grown in size as well, this still looks fairly nimble. Let

02:36 me know your thoughts. Right, we're inside the Mazda, we'll start off with the key.

02:39 Here it is, so you have Mazda logo, a little bit of brushed chrome down the

02:44 side there, nothing on the back. All your buttons are located on the side, so you

02:47 have lock, unlock, boot. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can just leave that

02:52 in your pocket. Once you're inside the car you have this push button start here.

02:55 So you can see here central to the interior upgrade is the new infotainment

03:00 system that sits proudly up the top there and it replaces MZD Connect which

03:03 was looking incredibly old and dated and I think this really sort of gives that

03:08 car the rejuvenated feel. This being the top spec model has literally every bell

03:12 and whistle that you can add to the car. What they've done in terms of styling

03:15 though is soft touch materials along the top there, there's padded material along

03:19 the center with that exposed stitching, real wood inlays along the dashboard

03:24 there and also the doors and then it sort of trickles down to a fairly

03:28 familiar setup with loads of piano black around there which is just really hard

03:32 to keep clean and on a car that's 300 kilometres old is already starting to

03:36 scratch. So not a fan of that but it's there anyway. Now what about your touch

03:40 points? So centre console is really nice and soft, same story with the door there.

03:45 How soft are they? Well we've tested the main surfaces on this car with our

03:49 gyrometer. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested

03:52 before, have a look at the link in the description. Now what about build quality?

03:55 Yeah look that all feels fairly solid. A little squeaky there but for the most

04:01 part this all feels well put together. Let's move on to infotainment. So this is

04:05 the Headline Act 10.25 inch infotainment system. Looks nice up the top there but

04:10 it has gone from being a touchscreen and also one controlled by this central

04:15 controller to one that is just controlled down here, you can't use that

04:18 as a touchscreen anymore. If you do want a detailed review of this, click up here

04:22 to watch one we recorded previously but today I'll give you just a brief

04:25 overview. So it has inbuilt satellite navigation, there's also voice

04:29 recognition. If I go back to the home screen and over to entertainment there

04:34 is AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio along with a 10 speaker Bose branded

04:39 sound system. We've also got both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. They're both

04:43 wired, I'll show you what that looks like. So full screen integration that looks

04:46 really nice and sharp. The only downside to it is that for me to get from here to

04:51 here because it's on a touchscreen and for some reason even though this

04:55 controller goes across I can't actually do that without going through all of the

05:00 menu items first so it takes a little while to actually navigate things while

05:04 you're on the move which is a little bit frustrating. Let's have a look at Android

05:08 Auto, there it is. So almost a full screen integration, instead you have a map there

05:12 and then another sidebar. Now the curious thing here is that unlike Apple CarPlay

05:17 where pushing the joystick to the right doesn't actually do anything, here it

05:21 transitions between those menus which just makes life much easier. Now what

05:26 about safety technology? You have low and high speed autonomous emergency

05:29 braking with pedestrian detection, got blind spot monitoring that is built into

05:33 the wing mirror, you have a lane keeping assistant and a lane departure warning,

05:38 rear cross-traffic alert, there's a driver attention monitor and radar cruise

05:42 control as well. On the parking front you have front and rear parking sensors and

05:46 a 360 camera. I'll show you what the quality of that looks like, it's actually

05:49 really good. So that's the front view camera, you can see it's quite high

05:52 resolution and that's your 360 view. Now the push of that button changes it to

05:57 the next angle which is looking at the front there on a super wide angle and

06:01 then one more push of that brings up your side cameras so you will never get

06:06 curbed wheels again, hopefully not. Now what about practicality and charging

06:10 your devices? Well you've got a 12-volt outlet down the front there, in the

06:14 center console you have two USB-A slots, another 12-volt outlet and then a slot

06:19 there for the SD card that services the maps. There's no wireless charging so

06:24 your phone just sort of sits down the front there. You can also pop the phone

06:28 in the cup holder there, cups, you can slide your cup into here, there is teeth

06:34 down the side, kind of catches the edges a little bit so you might lose a touch

06:39 of coffee if you do go down that route but it's not too bad. Bottles, let's have a look at our big one.

06:47 It fits in the center which is nice, let's see if it fits in the door, it fits in the door as

06:51 well which is good. Center console storage, you have a coin tray up the top

06:57 there and then it's really quite deep, I'll show you how deep it is with our

07:00 other bottle, there you go, it sort of fits in all the way. Then we have a glove box

07:06 over here, okay, it's not the world's biggest glove box and then finally up the top

07:12 here you have a sunglasses holder. Now moving on to comfort, you have dual zone

07:16 automatic climate control, you've got heated seats for the first and second

07:19 rows, cooled seats for the first row, you've got a heated steering wheel, the seats

07:24 are both electrically adjustable up the front with memory for the driver. Seats

07:28 themselves are made of Nappa leather with these perforations as well. Seats

07:32 really hug you in nicely so they keep you nice and secure there and they're very

07:36 comfortable and the steering wheel sits nicely in the hand. All of this stuff is

07:40 easy to reach and then you've also got a sunroof there as well.

07:43 So we're in the back seat of the CX-5, I thought I might point this out first,

07:46 look how far that door opens, it's almost 90 degrees so it means that if you are

07:50 loading kids and baby seats in, this is going to be a really good setup.

07:54 There's not much room I've got here, not a great deal of knee room but load of

07:59 toe room and head room is reasonable. Creature comforts, you have map pockets

08:04 in the back of the seats, air vents down here, you've got three top tether points,

08:08 two ISOFIX points on the outboard seats. Then over here you have a centre armrest

08:13 with two cup holders, we'll see if it fits our whopper in there, not quite.

08:17 See if that fits in the door, it kind of fits in sideways.

08:21 And then also in this centre armrest you have your seat heaters, little cubby in

08:27 here and that's where you'll also find two 2.1 amp USB A ports, slot that away.

08:33 Now the other thing I want to point out as well is yes this car is a little bit

08:36 expensive but they haven't cheaped out on the doors here.

08:39 All of this is soft touch material, more of that real wood inlay.

08:43 A lot of brands will just throw lots of plastic at the second row whereas this

08:47 actually all feels quite nice and premium.

08:50 OK let's talk cargo space.

08:51 Now it's not the most spacious SUV in the segment but you still get just under

08:57 500 litres of cargo space available here.

08:59 And in terms of the space and how versatile it is, under here you have a

09:03 Space Saver spare tyre that's half painted for some reason, it's like painted well

09:08 around those bits but not there.

09:10 Subwoofer in the centre.

09:11 You can also get rid of this cargo blind as well so it's an interesting setup

09:15 'cause I haven't seen that before, it sort of clips onto the roof, retracts into here.

09:19 You've also got a 12 volt outlet off to the side, storage over on both sides

09:24 and then hooks for tying things down.

09:27 Now I unfortunately left our suitcase at the office, locked myself out, long story.

09:33 So we have slightly different suitcases this time.

09:36 There's the laptop bag, these are Eagles camera bags.

09:39 This is the size of a carry on suitcase so it gives you an idea of how much space

09:44 there is there.

09:45 And then if you do want to expand the space a little bit more to just under

09:49 1400 litres, you can pull these levers off to the side and then they reveal

09:55 almost a flat floor.

09:58 So we are on the road now in the CX-5 Acura with the 2.5 litre turbo charged

10:02 four cylinder petrol engine. Makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres

10:09 of torque.

10:10 Now that's a really healthy amount for a four cylinder engine that isn't a diesel.

10:14 So it means that you get the benefits of having a slab of torque without the

10:17 downsides of having a diesel which is extra weight and then dirty hands every

10:21 single time you go to the diesel pump.

10:23 Now it's all mated to a six speed automatic transmission.

10:26 It's a torque converter so a standard transmission and that's good news

10:29 because dual clutches tend to be a little bit fussy at low speeds whereas

10:33 torque converters are just smooth and easy.

10:35 And it seems to be Mazda's philosophy, they just stick with these standard

10:39 transmissions because they just do the job, there's no point fussing around with

10:42 a complex dual clutch if you can avoid it.

10:44 Now what does that feel like behind the wheel?

10:46 Let's give it a little kick here in comfort mode.

10:49 Yeah that's really good, it punches you back into the seat.

10:52 Being all wheel drive it sort of doesn't have torque steer which is good.

10:56 So it's an on demand all wheel drive system which means that whenever it

10:59 senses traction loss at the front it will send torque to the rear and then to

11:03 save fuel it will basically just run as a front wheel drive.

11:07 So pretty decent intelligent system.

11:09 There's also an off road mode as well that helps it sort of deal with loss of

11:13 traction while you are driving off road.

11:15 Now that all results in an official fuel economy of 8.2 litres per 100 kilometres.

11:19 Let's see how we're doing here.

11:21 OK so we're currently on just above 10 litres per 100 k's.

11:25 There is a caveat here, so this car is brand new, we've basically been driving

11:29 it since it's been brand new so you can see it's got like 300 kilometres on the

11:32 clock so yeah this is probably going to be using a little more fuel than a

11:36 standard car straight out of the box that's had kilometres run on it.

11:39 So this will eventually come down as the engine gets run in.

11:43 It's worth noting as well just on the fuel use, unlike some of Mazda's European

11:47 competitors, this car will run on 91 RON regular unleaded fuel so that's going

11:52 to save you a little bit of money in the long run.

11:54 So there really is just two drive modes to pick from, normal and sport.

11:58 You activate sport by just pushing up on this little lever there, sport comes up

12:02 and you can feel it instantly start kicking back through gears.

12:05 You can also manually change gears using the gear shifter here or using the paddle

12:10 shifters on the steering wheel.

12:11 So in sport mode it's really eager to sort of jump back through the gears a whole

12:16 lot faster.

12:18 There is no adaptive damping or anything like that but for the most part this is

12:21 actually pretty good.

12:22 Nice and flat through corners, can be a little soft around the edges but it is

12:27 engaging enough to give you a smile.

12:28 The other good thing about the CX-5 is the steering feel.

12:32 It's not super soft around the edges like some of the SUVs in this segment.

12:36 It actually has a fair bit of resistance and I don't know, when you're in sport

12:40 mode giving it a punt it actually feels like you're doing something and in that

12:44 same frame of mind it has enough traction as well that the all-wheel drive system

12:48 is able to intervene without being too clunky.

12:51 Some of these on-demand systems wait until you've well and truly lost traction

12:54 before they come on whereas this just seems to be ready to jump into action a

12:58 whole lot earlier and that gives you more confidence behind the wheel.

13:01 Now Mazda doesn't have an official 0-100 time but we've put it up against our

13:05 stopwatch to see how it goes.

13:16 Let's talk ride really quickly.

13:17 Unlike a lot of the Korean manufacturers, Mazda doesn't do any ride and handling

13:21 tuning in Australia but they almost don't need to because the ride is pretty

13:24 much bang on.

13:25 In and around the city it's nice and smooth and on country roads it's nice

13:29 and smooth as well.

13:30 It does have a little bit of body roll when you go through

13:32 corners with a bit of speed but it is a family SUV.

13:36 It doesn't need to be all that sharp and I think that they've

13:38 dialled in the perfect amount of comfort and sportiness as well so it sits right

13:43 there in the middle.

13:44 That's exactly where I think it needs to be.

13:45 Now let's talk about road noise.

13:46 We're going at low speed now but earlier we were doing some highway

13:50 driving on a course chip road and this kind of has the inherent issue that

13:54 previous generations of the Mazda 3 had for example and that is a fair bit of

13:58 cabin noise when you're driving on course chip roads and that results in a

14:01 bit of booming inside the cabin.

14:03 So hopefully with the next generation of CX-5 they'll sort that out but that is

14:07 worth keeping in mind and why I always recommend a test drive.

14:10 You need to do the roads that you're going to be doing regularly and if you

14:13 drive on highways to work every day make sure you do a highway on your test drive

14:17 to make sure that it doesn't annoy you too much.

14:19 So what about visibility?

14:20 Well the head up display is excellent.

14:22 It's not the sort of chintzy type that you see in some cheaper SUVs where it

14:26 folds up, it's actually built into the cluster there like a proper head up

14:29 display and that means it's nice and sharp and clear ahead of the driver.

14:33 I can clearly see down the front of the car there, the wing mirrors are really

14:36 big and I can see down the side with that blind spot monitor.

14:40 Visibility out the back is good but not amazing, the headrests kind of get in

14:43 the way.

14:44 For the most part it's actually quite an easy car to drive and with the backup

14:47 there of front and rear parking sensors and 360 camera, really it's hard to go

14:50 wrong.

14:51 If you are planning on doing any towing, you've got a 2000 kilogram brake to

14:55 towing capacity with the all wheel drive version of the CX-5 Acura with the

15:00 turbo petrol engine and that follows onto ground clearance as well, 200mm.

15:04 So it's not amazing but it's not really low like some SUVs so there is enough

15:09 clearance there if you want to go to a campsite or something like that and then

15:12 of course you've got that off road mode that I mentioned earlier that helps with

15:14 traction control.

15:15 And finally turning circle, 11 metres so it's about right for an all wheel drive

15:21 SUV.

15:23 So the Mazda CX-5 Acura, the top of the tree.

15:28 Okay so I like the car, the car is nice, it's plush and so, that's Eagle's word

15:32 not mine.

15:33 It's nice to drive and the engine is punchy as well so it ticks all of those

15:37 boxes but it is super expensive at almost $52,000 plus on road costs, it is a lot

15:42 of money to spend on something like this, especially when you look at the

15:46 competitors.

15:47 So one of my favourites in the segment is the RAV4 Cruiser Hybrid and I think

15:50 at $46,000, $47,000 it is far better value for money, more efficient, more space

15:54 inside and has pretty much just as many features.

15:57 So let me know what you reckon in the comments section below, do you think this

15:59 is priced right?

16:00 I think if you are looking at a CX-5 and you want something premium, perhaps

16:03 have a look at the GT model which is one step down or even go a little further

16:07 down.

16:08 I think there is value to be had in the Mazda range but I just don't think

16:11 this is it.

16:12 So let me know, comment section below, is it too expensive?

16:15 What are you going to buy instead?

16:16 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you share it and if you haven't

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16:22 out every single time we do one of these new reviews but until next time, take it

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