2023 Mazda BT-50 (inc. 0-100km/h & off-road) review

CarExpert

Paul Maric checks out the limited edition 2023 Mazda BT-50 LE 4x4 - but is it already starting to show its age?  EVERY ute drag raced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJapGI4JT5M EVERY ute dyno tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVkYw0e8-o EVERY ute tow tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZbbJAIl4A EVERY ute tested off-road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ng66xBRM4  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Mazda content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda More Mazda BT-50 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda/bt-50  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:56 Interior: 03:51 Infotainment: 05:22 Safety Features: 06:33 Practicality: 07:15 On the Road 09:57 Driver Aids 14:36 Performance 16:16 Off the Road: 18:22 Verdict: 25:18  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 #bt50 #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So, dual cab units in Australia, we all know the segment is absolutely bonkers.

00:05 So, car brands are now trying to create value wherever they can. Mazda is the latest to do

00:11 that by creating this. It's called the BT50LE. It's based on another vehicle in the lineup,

00:16 but it comes with accessories here on the front and back as well. So, I thought we'd check it out

00:20 for the 2023 model year. Now, this here is the BT50LE. It's priced at just under $65,000. If

00:28 that's too expensive, the entire BT50 range kicks off at just over $35,000. This competes with

00:33 things like the Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux, and the Isuzu D-MAX that it shares a platform with.

00:38 Today, we're going to do a detailed on-road and off-road review of this. So, if you do want to

00:42 skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes on the screen,

00:45 or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done

00:48 so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. That'll notify you every single time we

00:53 get back into fly season. So, I hope you're sitting down on the design front. You have one

00:59 colour to choose from, and it's this one right here. You don't need to pay any extra for it

01:02 either. In terms of the accessories that come with the LE, down the front here, this is what you get.

01:07 So, they remove the standard plastic bumper down the bottom there, and they fit it with this genuine

01:12 accessory. The good news with this is it still does all the crash safety stuff that it would

01:16 normally as well. So, you're not really compromising anything there. You also have

01:20 some pre-drilled holes up the top here for further accessories as well. So, it's a single-hoop bull

01:25 bar, number plate mount down the bottom there as well. Run around to the side here, you have full

01:29 LED headlights with halogen lights down the bottom here, including a fog light as well.

01:34 Around the side here, you have a set of 18-inch alloy wheels. The wheel design is pretty

01:40 straightforward. So, machined finish on the outside, piano black on the inside there with

01:44 a plastic cover in the centre. No wheel arch cladding there, and this is a highway terrain

01:49 tyre that it comes standard with. You get these sort of plasticky side steps. I've said this

01:54 before in other dual-cab ute reviews. I just wish they would at least give you the option for rock

01:59 sliders or something a bit more durable here, because if you do give this a good old whack on

02:02 rocks, it is going to dent pretty easily. Black on this bottom section indicator built into there

02:07 with body colour at the top. There's no light or camera or anything here, so no 360 camera available

02:13 at all in BT.50 or D-Max, which is a little bit disappointing. Aerial located down the front there.

02:18 Chrome door handles. So, you get a sports bar here with the LE as well, and then whip around

02:24 to the back with me. So, around the back here, you have BT.50 down there, 4x4 here, because this is

02:29 a 4x4 variant. Mazda badge just there with a camera nestled into here. One of the things we

02:34 noticed recently when we did our big ute comparison, if that's live, you can see the links down in the

02:40 description below, but the camera was offset from the centre. So, when it came to hooking up your

02:45 trailer and stuff like that, it was a little inconvenient having the camera not centred to

02:49 the car, because it does make it a little tricky to do. And in terms of the taillights, these are

02:53 all halogen lights there. They're incandescent glow by the look of it, so no LED. This is

03:00 interesting as well. So, Isuzu updated the D-Max for 2023 model year with gas struts. This still

03:06 doesn't have that. It also doesn't have a torsion bar, so it means that this is quite heavy to open

03:09 and close. The other thing they fit the LE with is this heavy-duty tub liner as well. In terms of

03:15 your tub dimensions, it's just over 1500mm in terms of load length. You get 1530mm load width,

03:22 just over 1100mm between the wheel arches there. There is no 12-volt outlet. You do get a few

03:27 tie-down points as well, along with BT-50 embossed up the front there. So, it is kind of a little bit

03:33 behind some of the competitors in this segment, certainly from things like a torsion bar, even the

03:36 gas struts that you do get on D-Max. I think they really need to get with the times and fit some of

03:41 that stuff as standard here to BT-50. So, let me know what you reckon in the comments section below.

03:45 Do you reckon it's 65 grand with the accessories this has fitted that it is good value for money?

03:50 Keen to see your thoughts. So, we're inside the BT-50. We'll start off with the key. You've got

03:55 lock and unlock, blank at the top, blank at the bottom, a little bit of metallic stuff around the

03:59 edge there, Mazda logo on the back, and then you have a push-button start over here. Look, I think

04:04 they've done a really good job here with the materials and just making this feel like something

04:08 nicer than a work ute. So, you've got all this soft-touch stuff along the top of the dashboard

04:13 there, a little scratchy here, but it all stays soft-touch down here, especially where you're

04:17 resting your knee. So, you're getting a little bit of value out of the interior. It doesn't feel just

04:22 like a sort of rough-and-tumble work truck, and I also think there's probably merit in these cloth

04:28 seats as well. Leather's easy to keep clean, but cloth stuff doesn't get as hot in summer, and I

04:33 think this cloth design is nice enough. It doesn't look just like a cheap seat. In terms of the tech

04:39 and that sort of stuff, even though this is brand new and it's just launched, it is starting to feel

04:43 a little bit dated, and I'll run through that in the infotainment section there, but even ahead of

04:47 the driver here, you have a tiny little display at the top here. You are finding with some of the

04:50 other dual-cab utes on the market, they are getting bigger displays here ahead of the driver

04:54 too, so hopefully that is in the pipeline for Isuzu and Mazda. Now, what about your touch points? So,

05:00 that is not too bad in the centre there. It's got on the door as well. How soft are they? Well,

05:04 we've got our durometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how

05:08 this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description

05:11 below. Build quality, a tiny bit loose through there, but the rest of this feels okay, and our

05:18 door test, nice and solid. So, let's chat infotainment. Central to the cabin is this

05:25 nine-inch infotainment screen. So, it's a colour touchscreen. You can move it around like that,

05:30 and then you have shortcut buttons down the bottom. As you can see there, it's not the

05:33 snappiest thing in the world. It can be a little bit laggy at times, and then in terms of the

05:38 functionality, it is pretty limited. I mean, you do have in-built satellite navigation, but

05:43 outside of that, it doesn't really do a great deal. On the radio front, you have AM/FM/DAB

05:47 digital radio, and that's all plumbed through an eight-speaker sound system. Sound system is okay.

05:52 You do get live surround sound above your head, which is kind of funny. On the smartphone

05:57 mirroring front, you have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay is wireless,

06:02 so I'll show you what that looks like. There it is there, so tiny bit laggy, but for the most part,

06:07 that's actually not too bad, and this is what Android Auto looks like. So, full screen integration

06:13 there, kind of the same as CarPlay in terms of its responsiveness, but it does the job.

06:18 I'll show you the screen here ahead of the driver as well. It is a pretty basic little display,

06:22 and you can just zip between a few of these menus here, but there is sort of nothing too special

06:26 there. This is where you're going to select some of your driving controls, and also trip computer.

06:30 We'll have a bit more of a play with that when we go for a drive. Moving on to safety,

06:34 you have autonomous emergency braking that detects pedestrians and cyclists. You have

06:38 an auto-dimming rear vision mirror, blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror. You have a

06:43 lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant, lane centering assistant too.

06:47 We will test that when we go for a drive later on. In addition to that, you have radar cruise

06:52 control. You have rear cross traffic alert. On the parking front, you have rear parking sensors

06:57 and a reverse view camera. I'll show you what the camera looks like. Pop it into reverse.

07:01 Yeah, look, the quality is okay, but not amazing. You can kind of see what our suitcase says there,

07:06 and it is just ever so slightly off-centre as well. And finally, what does our horn sound like?

07:12 Here we go. Righto, moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with connectivity. Down here,

07:20 you have one USB-A port and a little auxiliary outlet. Next to that, you have a 12-volt outlet

07:27 as well. You can pop your phone down here. There is no wireless phone charging, which I reckon is

07:32 a little bit disappointing. It'd be nice to see that added to VT50 and D-Max as well.

07:37 Now, coffee cup. Fortunately, it is a very deep hole down here, and it means that your coffee

07:42 cup just disappears. You've got to prop it up a little bit, otherwise it will get deleted. But

07:46 the good news is, because it is such a deep hole, you can get your bottle in there and it doesn't

07:50 really move around too much. Bottle storage inside the door is good for a little bottle. We'll try

07:55 it with our big bottle as well. Whoops. Yay, boom, that works. Other storage. You've got a little

08:01 slot here next to the driver's knee. You've got this centre console, which is pretty reasonably

08:05 sized. In addition to that, you've got one glove box down here that is almost entirely consumed by

08:10 the manual. The manual is bloody huge. And then you have a second container up the top here. And

08:16 finally, you have a sunglasses holder right up the top. And what about your comfort? So you have

08:21 dual-zone automatic climate control up the front here. Outside of that, it's all pretty basic. I

08:26 mentioned the cloth seats. They're fully manually adjustable. Steering is tilt and reach adjustable,

08:33 and on the reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving. Seats are pretty

08:36 comfy as well. So if you are doing a long-distance drive, they hug you in nicely and give you a fair

08:40 bit of comfort on those longer journeys. So second row. Before I hop in, I'll just show you some of

08:45 the creature comforts here. So you can lift the base up here. That gives you a little bit of

08:50 sneaky storage there. Same story on that side as well. If you do want to get kids into your work

08:57 vehicle, you do have two top tether points here as well. So they feed through here and then

09:03 connect in at the top there as well. Jack, just over there. I mean, just squeezes in.

09:08 Okay, so let's hop into here. It's actually not a huge amount of room here. So my knees are kind

09:17 of wedged into the seat there. I do have my seat pretty far back, but I thought there'd be a touch

09:21 more room there. Toe room is fairly compromised as well. Headroom is okay. On your other creature

09:27 comforts, you do have a little hook here for shopping and stuff. You have a USB outlet here

09:32 for charging a device. You also have two air vents just there as well. Map pockets too. The ISOFIX

09:38 points are down the bottom here, like I mentioned before. Two cup holders there that you can whack

09:43 your bottle into. You've got storage inside the door as well. Finally, our window test. Will it

09:50 go all the way down? It's manual down. Boom. Excellent. Good job, Mazda. So we have just hit

09:59 the road in the BT50. Look, this is probably going to be familiar to you if you've seen our other BT50

10:04 reviews, but I'll run through it again anyway. So under the bonnet there, you've got a 3-litre

10:08 turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine. It makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres of

10:15 torque, and that's all mated to a six-speed automatic transmission. How does all that feel

10:19 behind the wheel? The six-speed auto is actually not bad. It's pretty responsive. Once it gets up

10:24 and moves, it sort of gives you a nice shunt in the back. Everything sort of happens nice

10:28 and progressively as well, and then it doesn't always have to dive through the gears. It can

10:33 just lean on its torque band to get things moving. It is a little bit noisy though. When you do

10:37 really get stuck into it, you get a fair bit of noise coming to the cabin. So I think that is

10:42 worth just keeping in mind if you do like a very quiet and serene environment. This probably isn't

10:46 the engine choice for you. Mazda claims a combined average of 8 litres per 100 k's. We are currently

10:52 sitting on 9.6. So it's there or about. If you're going to be doing predominantly city driving,

10:59 expect that figure to go up simply because it is going to use a fair bit more fuel in the city

11:03 than it does on the highway. On the highway, you're not going to use as much fuel simply

11:07 because it isn't revving as hard, especially if you're not towing or carrying a load.

11:10 The other thing I like about this is how light the steering is. You know, they moved to an

11:15 electrically assisted steering rack with the new generation of D-MAX, and really just makes

11:21 it easy to park in the city. It's smooth and light at driving speeds as well. It's not like

11:27 the Hilux, which is still really heavy behind the wheel. You feel like you're working all the time.

11:31 This is just nice and easy and no dramas at all. OK, time to hit our sine waves. Let's jack the

11:36 speed up to 130, which is maximum speed here in Australia, and also the speed you might get up to

11:42 if you're overtaking. And then we've got our sine waves, which are indicative of a pretty

11:49 shitty country road here in Australia. And if you hit these at 130, such as when you're

11:54 overtaking, you could be in all sorts of drama. So there's 130. Whoa, that is very, very floaty.

12:01 So yeah, look, I think they probably need to tighten things up a little bit there.

12:05 The biggest issue you have here with these vehicles that have leaf spring suspension,

12:09 you don't want to go too hard on the ride because it then becomes uncomfortable,

12:14 and then you don't want to go too soft because then you have no body control at that top end.

12:17 So this is sort of right at that top limit. I wouldn't want to be any softer than that,

12:22 especially if you're towing and you hit those kind of consecutive bumps.

12:25 OK, another thing we've now thrown into our tests is just this bumpy section here.

12:33 This signifies a terrible country road here in Australia. You get to see my

12:36 man boobs bounce around a bit, but I'll hit this at 90 and we'll see what it's

12:41 like in terms of body control. Look, it's actually not too bad. We're about to hit our

12:47 super tight sine waves here. Shakes the body around a fair bit.

12:51 Actually not terrible. We did this in Pajero Sport recently, and that was kind of all over

12:56 the place on those super tight sine waves. Even here on this choppy stuff, it's still

13:01 giving me more than enough control, and I have directional steering there as well.

13:06 So yeah, look, it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be on the really choppy stuff.

13:10 So if you do predominantly drive this in the country, it's not going to do your head in on

13:14 these dodgy roads. Yeah, let's talk about road noise. There isn't actually a huge amount of

13:18 road noise. It's more wind noise around the wing mirrors and then the engine as well.

13:22 Outside of that, it's actually not a bad place to be seated.

13:25 OK, there's no sport mode, but let's go for a little

13:27 fang around our track. We'll see what this feels like. I'm not expecting amazing things, but...

13:32 Traction control has just killed all of our fun there.

13:42 It's funny because typically with Isuzas, traction control isn't very good off-road,

13:45 and it's killing all our joy on-road as well. Through here, I can hold this flat in Hilux and

13:50 Ranger without traction control throwing a fit like it is here. So yeah, look, it is

13:55 a little floaty there, and that results in a fair bit of body roll. I don't expect this to be super

14:02 sporty, but we do a lap of our circuit here in every car that we test to see what they feel like.

14:11 Yeah, look, it's not too bad. It's actually pretty predictable. It has that body roll and

14:15 the traction control's constantly flashing, but everything that it's doing is pretty predictable

14:20 to me. Nothing sort of too surprising. I'll stay on the throttle out the back here once

14:24 traction control settles down. Yeah, look, it doesn't have a great deal of puff there as the

14:29 speed picks up, but look, it's fine. It's not the worst and it's definitely not the best.

14:36 Okay, we've hit our circular bowl. We want to check how well the lane support systems work. So

14:42 I'm going to set cruise control at 70 kilometres an hour there. Then what we're going to do is

14:48 engage all the lane support systems to see how well they work. Okay, there we go. That is set.

14:54 I'm going to press this button here on the steering wheel. Brings up a little steering

14:56 wheel there. It goes green to signify that it is now steering the vehicle. You have to keep your

15:00 hand on the wheel, otherwise it will eventually disengage, but even here in our easiest lane,

15:05 we are right on that line there. In fact, it's about to cross the line, so it's not doing a very

15:12 good job at all. This system is designed to keep the car in the centre of the lane, and even on a

15:16 light turn like this, it doesn't do very well. We're going to jump over to the next lane and

15:20 the furthest lane. This, as a reminder, isn't testing how well the car copes with a banked

15:25 oval. This is simply testing how much torque it's willing to apply to the steering wheel to keep it

15:30 within that lane. So, jump over to the next lane over now. Wait for that steering wheel to go green.

15:36 So, waiting, waiting. There it is. It's green. I'll let go of the wheel now.

15:44 That is so bad. It's just literally crossed the line there without even attempting to stay in that

15:51 lane. We'll try the outer lane as well. I don't hold high hopes, given how poorly it worked in

15:56 that second lane. We'll see if it even engages up here. No, it's not even engaging at all. So,

16:04 oh, there it is. It's engaged, and it's cancelled. Yeah, so, not a great system,

16:09 unfortunately. It probably just needs a little bit of refinement, I think.

16:13 Okay, so let's talk 0-100. There is no official 0-100 time, but we'll give it a crack here and

16:22 just see how we go. I'm going to switch traction control off, just so we don't get any wheels

16:28 spinning up. Load up a bit of revs, and we'll go all the way through to 120.

16:32 And see what the overtake speed is like. Start there. Here we go. All right, there's 80.

16:40 Feels nice and strong, actually. 100. And then once we break 120, I'll come to a stop.

16:49 Awesome. All right, let's bring this up to a stop. I'll have a little sticky beak here and

16:55 see how quick everything was. 0-100 in 11.18 seconds, so it took a little while to get there.

17:03 And then our 80-120 was nine seconds, so it is a fair old time there as well. So,

17:10 you've got to remember that if you are towing with this, you're going to be

17:13 even slower than that again. So, yeah, if you do want to see how the BT50 compares to other

17:18 vehicles that we've tested before, there's a link in the description below to see how it

17:22 stacks up against its rivals. Okay, it is time for our 100k an hour to zero stop. I'm going to need a

17:29 big old run up here. Get this to just above 100k's an hour, and then we'll slam down the anchors and

17:35 see how it goes. All right, there it is. Oh, oh my god. So, 2.91 seconds and 40.41 metres is the

17:52 stopping distance. So, again, if you do want to see how this compares to other vehicles that we've

17:57 tested before, have a look at the link in the description below. Okay, time to see how quickly

18:02 BT50 will go in reverse. So, let's line up our marker here, pop it into reverse, and here we go.

18:11 It'll skid off the line there. So, it is about 50k's an hour.

18:20 Okay, time for some light off-roading. Let's talk about the four-wheel drive specs. So,

18:26 you have an approach angle of 30.4 degrees, that's the angle of the face you can approach before,

18:31 destroying the front of your car. It is slightly better here with that bull bar setup because it

18:36 takes off the bottom edge of the car. Departure angle of 24.2 degrees, which is the same but

18:42 in reverse. You have a wading depth of 800 millimetres and a ground clearance of 240mm.

18:47 In terms of the four-wheel drive controls, it's two-wheel drive high range for regular driving

18:51 on sealed surfaces, four-wheel drive high range for driving on unsealed surfaces, and four-wheel

18:56 drive low range. You have a hill descent control and also a rear diff lock that works in low range.

19:02 If you want to know what all of that stuff means and how to use all this properly,

19:06 click up here to watch our four-wheel drive controls explained video. But what we're going

19:09 to do, we're going to attack our Offset Mogul in our light off-road course in two-wheel drive high

19:14 range first with traction control on. The whole purpose of this is for us to get a gauge of how

19:21 well the traction control system works when a wheel is off the ground. So, right about there,

19:27 we have the driver's side rear not doing a great deal. I'm just going to lay into the throttle.

19:32 Traction control is flashing, but it's not actually going anywhere at all.

19:39 So, that's not great. I'm going to switch off

19:45 traction control, see if that helps us at all.

19:47 No, it just sits there and spins a wheel. We did actually see some feedback from someone

19:55 in our BT50 review that said we should switch stability control off. So, let's try that as well.

20:00 I'll push and hold the traction control button, wait for stability control to switch off.

20:05 There it is there and go again.

20:08 That has not helped at all. Thank you for your input though.

20:15 So, I'm going to have to basically back out of that and just go around to the other side.

20:22 I don't want to get stuck. Oh my God, that would have been comical.

20:26 Okay, we're going to go around to the other side where we use four-wheel drive high range.

20:30 Gee, this traction control system is absolutely terrible. They need to

20:35 just get that sorted on D-Max and BT50.

20:38 Okay, so going back, we're going to go into four-wheel drive high range, traction control on.

20:45 What this is going to do is split torque 50% between the front axle, 50% between the rear,

20:51 but we're going to get it into a situation now where the rear right and the front left

20:55 are kind of off the ground with limited contact patches for traction,

20:59 and that's going to force the traction control system again to do its work

21:03 and to basically get it all figured out for us.

21:06 So, get it into this position just here and then I'll lean onto the throttle.

21:12 Not a whole lot is happening there. Traction control is flashing.

21:20 Putting more and more throttle on.

21:22 Oh, it's so close. There it is. Okay, we got over there. That took a lot of work.

21:29 So basically, the traction control system was just fighting that wheel slip

21:33 on those two wheels for ages before it did anything.

21:36 Most other utes we test here will just hook up pretty much straight away and get out of that.

21:40 So yeah, I think traction control is probably the weakness here in BT50.

21:46 Okay, next up is our hill climb. So for this one, we're going to go full hardcore.

21:51 I'm going to drop this into low range. So to do that, you've got to put it into neutral.

21:54 Flick that over to 4L. It'll make some noise. Engage 4L,

21:58 and then we'll lock the rear diff by pushing that button.

22:00 That'll flash until that's engaged, and typically you need to have a bit of

22:04 momentum and movement until that is happy to engage. There it is there.

22:08 So what we're going to do now is I'm just going to try driving up it,

22:11 and if we make it all the way to the top, I'll come back around again and then stop

22:15 halfway and then get onto the throttle again to see how well the 4WD system works.

22:19 Traction control is totally off here, so this is really just going to be the 4WD system

22:23 doing all of the work for us. So we'll see how well it can do that.

22:28 So far, so good. It's getting up here without any dramas at all. That is awesome.

22:33 It really does show you the Achilles heel to the whole thing really is the traction control.

22:39 So yeah, it's kind of something they just need to get sorted, I reckon.

22:43 Okay, let's test out our hill descent control. So for that I'm going to exit rear diff lock mode.

22:50 Wait for that to disengage. There it is there. And then I'll engage hill descent control.

22:57 That's now active, and then we're going to send it over our ledge here and see how well it does.

23:02 I can't see anything over the edge, and it doesn't have a 360 camera.

23:06 There's nothing for me to engage, so I've rolled out of the throttle.

23:12 Yeah, it really does pick up way too fast, and then it kind of breaks all of a sudden

23:20 right at the end. And that's what we noticed when we did our big 4WD test, that

23:23 it just did too little too late. And by that point, if you're on some sketchy terrain where

23:28 it's muddy or something like that, you're going to be well and truly sailing down the bottom

23:32 while this thing's trying to save you. So I probably wouldn't be using the hill descent

23:35 control in BT50. Okay, let's take a look at our hill once more. This time,

23:39 we're going to stop halfway up, and then we're going to roll onto the throttle.

23:42 Let's see how well it does. I'll bring it up to this point just here,

23:49 and then I'll roll onto the throttle now. Nice relaxing position this is.

23:52 Yeah, a piece of cake. A little bit of wheel slip there, but no dramas at all. Very impressive. It

24:01 is just let down by the traction control system. Okay, rock time. So yeah, pretty decent ground

24:07 clearance at 240mm. So we'll cruise over our rocks here. So I've just left it in low range,

24:12 and I'll just ride the brake with the throttle, and we'll see how it does.

24:16 Yeah, it is super comfy. Yeah, the big benefit of that softer ride, while it does sort of suffer

24:23 a bit in body control on our side waves, it actually helps it really nicely here on the

24:29 rocks because it is so smooth. It's actually surprising how smooth it is. We haven't really

24:35 hit anything underneath either yet, which is pretty good. Yeah, nice. Actually, really good.

24:42 Yeah, there you go. Okay. So while the traction control isn't very good on this,

24:48 the rest is actually not too bad. So our river is dry. Normally I would drive through it at

24:53 the moment, but yeah, it's pretty much empty at the moment. So we're looking at ways of making

24:57 sure it is constantly full. But in the interim, here's some footage of the D-MAX doing that

25:02 crossing so you can get an idea of what it's like with 800 millimetres wading depth with

25:07 a depth of about 650 to 700 mil, so not too bad.

25:10 So Mazda VT50 LE, stands for limited edition, but anyway, no big structures aside, I think that,

25:28 look, this is an all-round good ute. It is limited by its traction controls off-road,

25:33 but inside the cabin, I just think it looks nice. It looks premium and it doesn't cost

25:38 an arm and a leg. And you do get some of these accessories that you can actually stick other

25:41 stuff on as well. And they're all genuine accessories too, which means if there's any

25:44 dramas, you just take it back to Mazda and they sort everything out for you.

25:47 In terms of the VT50 in general, though, the rest of the segment really is starting to push forward.

25:52 We're going to see a new Triton, new Navara soon as well, and they will probably go to town on the

25:57 technology game. So I'm hoping that Isuzu and Mazda do have something coming for this in terms

26:03 of bringing it up to speed with stuff like the new Ford Ranger as well. So let me know what you

26:07 reckon in the comments section below. Are you a VT50 customer? Have you bought one? What is it

26:12 like to drive and what is it like to own? Let me know in the comments section below.

26:15 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates.

26:19 If you haven't done so already, please buy me some AeroGuard.

26:22 Hit subscribe and the bell icon as well. But until next time, take it easy.

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