2021 Mazda CX-5 turbo review Now with bigger infotainment!
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00:00G'day, I'm Paul, so the Mazda CX-5 in Australia is one of the most popular mid-sized SUVs
00:05on the market, and it did benefit from a little bit of a facelift not that long ago, but the
00:10interior didn't get updated.
00:11Well, that has all changed now, and today we're checking out this.
00:13This is the top specification CX-5 Akira.
00:17It's priced at just under $52,000.
00:20This one's a little too expensive, the entire range starts at just over $31,000, so there
00:24are a lot of options in that segment.
00:27It competes with things like the Nissan X-Trail, the Hyundai Tucson, and the Toyota RAV4.
00:32Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car.
00:35If you want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes on
00:39the screen, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and there's chapters below there.
00:43And if you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to our channel and press the
00:46bell icon, so you can find out every single time we drive cars that have been updated
00:50a little bit.
00:52Let's talk exterior.
00:53It's got nine colours to pick from, and all of the metallic colours except silver are
00:57about $500 extra.
01:00Let's look at the design for a second.
01:01So I mentioned earlier that this got an update a little while ago.
01:04I think it was at the LA Motor Show that they rolled out a bit of a sort of nip and tuck
01:08to it, but it's remained fairly unchanged since then, and I don't think that's such
01:12a bad thing.
01:13You can see the face of this car has kind of grown with the rest of the family.
01:16The CX-9 looks fairly similar, the CX-3 looks kind of similar as well, so they're all following
01:20that same design trend, which is a big grille there, and the grille has that 3D effect with
01:25a giant Mazda logo there, and then chrome lashings around the side of the grille.
01:31This is in addition to features like full LED headlights, and on this one here in particular,
01:36the top spec, it has active shadowing.
01:38So that's technically the matrix LED function that you see on more expensive cars today.
01:43So it's a good technology to see, LED fog light down there as well.
01:46If you do want to see a video that we shot comparing headlight technologies and exactly
01:50how this stuff works, click up here to watch that video.
01:53Down here you've got 19-inch alloy wheels.
01:56I quite like this design, it's like a shadow chrome, so it blends in really nicely with
02:00the car's body paint, and it's just a little bit different to the rest of the wheels on
02:04the market today.
02:05And they haven't gone too crazy here with the wheel arches, I think in the CX-30 they
02:08take up like 90% of the side of the car, whereas this is quite modest and actually looks pretty
02:13classy which is good.
02:14Around the side here you have an indicator built into that wing mirror, it's a 360 camera
02:19slotted into there.
02:20You have a sunroof here on the top spec model.
02:22You've got a shark fin aerial up the top there, LED taillights.
02:26Let me know in the comments section, do you think the CX-5 is getting a little bit dated
02:29in terms of design?
02:30If you look at the rest of the competitors in this segment, they've kind of grown in
02:34size as well, this still looks fairly nimble, let me know your thoughts.
02:37Right, we're inside the Mazda, we'll start off with the key.
02:40Here it is, so you have Mazda logo, a little bit of brushed chrome down the side there,
02:45nothing on the back.
02:46The buttons are located on the side, so you have lock, unlock, boot.
02:50It's a proximity sensing key, so you can just leave that in your pocket.
02:53Once you're inside the car you have this push button start here.
02:56So you can see here central to the interior upgrade is the new infotainment system that
03:00sits proudly up the top there and it replaces MZD Connect which was looking incredibly old
03:05and dated and I think this really sort of gives that car the rejuvenated feel.
03:10This being the top spec model has literally every bell and whistle that you can add to
03:14the car.
03:15The interior in terms of styling though is soft touch materials along the top there,
03:18there's padded material along the centre with that exposed stitching, real wood inlays along
03:23the dashboard there and also the doors and then it sort of trickles down to a fairly
03:28familiar setup with loads of piano black around there which is just really hard to keep clean
03:33and on a car that's 300km old, it's already starting to scratch so not a fan of that but
03:39it's there anyway.
03:40Now what about your touch points?
03:41So centre console is really nice and soft, same story with the door there.
03:45How soft are they?
03:46Well we've tested the main surfaces on this car with our gyrometer, if you want to see
03:50how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in
03:53the description.
03:55Now what about build quality?
03:57Look that all feels fairly solid, little squeaky there but for the most part this all feels
04:02well put together.
04:03Let's move on to infotainment, so this is the Headline Act 10.25 inch infotainment system,
04:09looks nice up the top there but it has gone from being a touchscreen and also one controlled
04:14by this central controller to one that is just controlled down here, you can't use that
04:19as a touchscreen anymore.
04:20If you do want a detailed review of this, click up here to watch one we recorded previously
04:24but today I'll give you just a brief overview.
04:26So it has inbuilt satellite navigation, there's also voice recognition, if I go back to the
04:31home screen and over to entertainment there is AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio along
04:38with a 10 speaker Bose branded sound system, we've also got both Apple CarPlay and Android
04:43Auto, they're both wired, I'll show you what that looks like, so full screen integration,
04:46that looks really nice and sharp.
04:48The only downside to it is that for me to get from here to here because it's on a touchscreen
04:54and for some reason even though this controller goes across, I can't actually do that without
04:59going through all of the menu items first so it takes a little while to actually navigate
05:03things while you're on the move which is a little bit frustrating.
05:06Let's have a look at Android Auto, there it is, so almost a full screen integration,
05:11instead you have a map there and then another sidebar.
05:15Now the curious thing here is that unlike Apple CarPlay where pushing the joystick to
05:20the right doesn't actually do anything, here it transitions between those menus which just
05:24makes life much easier.
05:26Now what about safety technology?
05:27You have low and high speed autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection, you've
05:32got blind spot monitoring that is built into the wing mirror, you have a lane keeping assistant
05:36and a lane departure warning, rear cross traffic alert, there's a driver attention
05:40monitor and radar cruise control as well.
05:43On the parking front you have front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera, I'll show
05:47you what the quality of that looks like, it's actually really good, so that's the front
05:51view camera, you can see it's quite high resolution and that's your 360 view, now the push of
05:55that button changes it to the next angle which is looking out the front there on a super
06:00wide angle and then one more push of that brings up your side cameras so you will never
06:06get curbed wheels again, hopefully not.
06:08Now what about practicality and charging your devices, well you've got a 12 volt outlet
06:13down the front there, in the centre console you have 2 USB A slots, another 12 volt outlet
06:18and then a slot there for the SD card that services the maps.
06:23There's no wireless charging so your phone just sort of sits down the front there, you
06:27can also pop the phone in the cup holder there, cups, you can slide your cup into here, there
06:33is teeth down the side, kind of catches the edges a little bit so you might lose a touch
06:40of coffee if you do go down that route but it's not too bad.
06:44Bottles, let's have a look at our big one, it fits in the centre which is nice, let's
06:49see if it fits in the door, it fits in the door as well which is good.
06:53Centre console storage, you have a coin tray up the top there and then it's really quite
06:59deep, I'll show you how deep it is with our other bottle, there you go, it sort of fits
07:02in all the way.
07:05Then we have a glove box over here, it's OK, it's not the world's biggest glove box and
07:11then finally up the top here you have a sunglasses holder.
07:14Now moving on to comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control, you've got heated
07:18seats for the first and second rows, cooled seats for the first row, you've got a heated
07:23steering wheel, the seats are both electrically adjustable up the front with memory for the
07:27driver.
07:28The seats themselves are made of Nappa leather with these perforations as well, seats really
07:33hug you in nicely so they keep you nice and secure there and they're very comfortable
07:37and the steering wheel sits nicely in the hand.
07:39All of this stuff is easy to reach and then you've also got a sunroof there as well.
07:44So we're in the back seat of the CX-5, I thought I might point this out first, look how far
07:48that door opens, it's almost 90 degrees so it means that if you are loading kids and
07:51baby seats in this is going to be a really good setup.
07:54There's not much room I've got here, not a great deal of knee room but load of toe room
08:00and headroom is reasonable.
08:02Creature comforts, you have mat pockets in the back of the seats, air vents down here,
08:07you've got three top tether points, two ISOFIX points on the outboard seats, then over here
08:12you have a centre armrest with two cup holders, we'll see if it fits our whopper in there,
08:17not quite, that fits in the door, it kind of fits in sideways and then also in this
08:23centre armrest you have your seat heaters, little cubby in here and that's where you'll
08:28also find two 2.1 amp USB A ports, slot that away.
08:33Now the other thing I want to point out as well is yes this car is a little bit expensive
08:37but they haven't cheaped out on the doors here so all of this is soft touch material,
08:42more of that real wood inlay, a lot of brands will just throw lots of plastic at the second
08:47row whereas this actually all feels quite nice and premium.
08:50Let's talk cargo space, now it's not the most spacious SUV in the segment but you
08:55still get just under 500 litres of cargo space available here and in terms of the space and
09:01how versatile it is, under here you have a space saver spare tyre that's half painted
09:06for some reason, it's like painted well around those bits but not there, Bose subwoofer in
09:10the centre, you can also get rid of this cargo blind as well so it's an interesting setup
09:15because I haven't seen that before, it sort of clips onto the roof, retracts into here,
09:19you've also got a 12 volt outlet off to the side, storage over on both sides and then
09:25hooks for tying things down.
09:26Now I unfortunately left our suitcase at the office, locked myself out, long story,
09:33so we have slightly different suitcases this time, so there's the laptop bag,
09:38these are Eagles camera bags, this is the size of a carry-on suitcase so it gives you
09:42an idea of how much space there is there and then if you do want to expand the space a
09:47little bit more to just under 1400 litres, you can pull these levers off to the side
09:54and then they reveal almost a flat floor.
09:57So we are on the road now in the CX-5 Acura with the 2.5 litre turbocharged 4-cylinder
10:03petrol engine, makes 140 kilowatts of power and 450 newton metres of torque, now that's
10:10a really healthy amount for a 4-cylinder engine that isn't a diesel, so it means that you
10:14get the benefits of having a slab of torque without the downsides of having a diesel which
10:19is extra weight and then dirty hands every single time you go to the diesel pump.
10:23Now it's all mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission, it's a torque converter so a
10:27standard transmission and that's good news because dual clutches tend to be a little
10:31bit fussy at low speeds whereas torque converters are just smooth and easy and it seems to be
10:36Mazda's philosophy, they just stick with these standard transmissions because they
10:40just do the job, there's no point fussing around with a complex dual clutch if you
10:44can avoid it.
10:44Now what does that feel like behind the wheel?
10:46Let's give it a little kick here in comfort mode, yeah that's really good, it punches
10:50you back into the seat, being all-wheel drive it sort of doesn't have torque steer which
10:56is good, so it's an on-demand all-wheel drive system which means that whenever it
10:59senses traction loss at the front it will send torque to the rear and then to save fuel
11:04it will basically just run as a front-wheel drive, so pretty decent intelligent system.
11:08There's also an off-road mode as well that helps it sort of deal with loss of traction
11:13while you are driving off-road.
11:15Now that all results in an official fuel economy of 8.2 litres per 100 kilometres, let's
11:20see how we're doing here, okay so we're currently on just above 10 litres per 100
11:24k's, there is a caveat here, so this car is brand new, we've basically been driving
11:29it since it's been brand new so you can see it's got like 300 kilometres on the
11:32clock, so yeah this is probably going to be using a little more fuel than a standard car
11:37straight out of the box that's had kilometres run on it, so this will eventually come down
11:42as the engine gets run in.
11:43It's worth noting as well just on the fuel use, unlike some of Mazda's European
11:47competitors, this car will run on 91 ron regular unleaded fuel, so that's going to
11:52save you a little bit of money in the long run.
11:54So there really is just two drive modes to pick from, normal and sport, you activate
11:59sport by just pushing up on this little lever there, sport comes up and you can feel it
12:03instantly start kicking back through gears, you can also manually change gears using the
12:07gear shifter here or using the paddle shifters on the steering wheel.
12:11So in sport mode it's really eager to sort of jump back through the gears a whole lot
12:16faster, there is no adaptive damping or anything like that but for the most part this is actually
12:21pretty good, sits nice and flat through corners, can be a little soft around the edges but
12:26it is engaging enough to give you a smile.
12:29The other good thing about the CX-5 is the steering feel, it's not super soft around
12:34the edges like some of the SUVs in this segment, it actually has a fair bit of resistance
12:39and I don't know, when you're in sport mode giving it a punt, it actually feels like
12:42you're doing something and in that same frame of mind it has enough traction as well that
12:47the all-wheel drive system is able to intervene without being too clunky.
12:51Some of these on-demand systems wait until you've well and truly lost traction before
12:54they come on whereas this just seems to be ready to jump into action a whole lot earlier
12:59and that gives you more confidence behind the wheel.
13:01Now Mazda doesn't have an official 0-100 time but we've put it up against our stopwatch
13:06to see how it goes.
13:09Let's talk ride really quickly, unlike a lot of the Korean manufacturers, Mazda doesn't
13:20do any ride and handling tuning in Australia but they almost don't need to because the
13:24ride is pretty much bang on, in and around the city it's nice and smooth, out on country
13:28roads it's nice and smooth as well, it does have a little bit of body roll when you go
13:32through corners with a bit of speed but it is a family SUV, it doesn't need to be all
13:37that sharp and I think that they've dialled in the perfect amount of comfort and sportiness
13:42as well so it sits right there in the middle, that's exactly where I think it needs to be.
13:45Now let's talk about road noise, we're going at low speed now but earlier we were doing
13:49some highway driving on a course chip road and this kind of has the inherent issue that
13:54previous generations of the Mazda 3 had for example and that is a fair bit of cabin noise
13:59when you're driving on course chip roads and that results in a bit of booming inside
14:02the cabin so hopefully with the next generation of CX-5 they'll sort that out
14:06but that is worth keeping in mind and why I always recommend a test drive, you need to do
14:11the roads that you're going to be doing regularly and if you drive on highways to work every day
14:15make sure you do a highway on your test drive to make sure that it doesn't annoy you too much.
14:19So what about visibility, well the head-up display is excellent, it's not the sort of
14:23chintzy type that you see in some cheaper SUVs where it folds up, it's actually built
14:28into the cluster there like a proper head-up display, that means it's nice and sharp and
14:32clear ahead of the driver. I can clearly see down the front of the car there the wing mirrors are
14:36really big and I can see down the side with that blind spot monitor. Visibility out the back is
14:41good but not amazing, the headrests kind of get in the way, for the most part it's actually quite
14:45an easy car to drive and with the backup there of front and rear parking sensors and 360 camera
14:50really is hard to go wrong. If you are planning on doing any towing you've got a 2000 kilogram
14:55brake to towing capacity with the all-wheel drive version of the CX-5 Akira with the turbo petrol
15:01engine and that follows on to ground clearance as well, 200 millimetres so it's not amazing but
15:06it's not really low like some SUVs so there is enough clearance there if you want to go to a
15:10campsite or something like that and then of course you've got that off-road mode that I mentioned
15:14earlier that helps with traction control. Finally turning circle 11 metres so it's about right for
15:20an all-wheel drive SUV. So the Mazda CX-5 Akira, the top of the tree, okay so I like the car,
15:29the car is nice, it's plush and so, that's Eagle's word not mine, it's nice to drive and the engine
15:35is punchy as well so it ticks all of those boxes but it is super expensive at almost $52,000 plus
15:41on-road costs it is a lot of money to spend on something like this especially when you look at
15:45the competitors. So one of my favourites in the segment is the RAV4 Cruiser Hybrid and I think at
15:50$46,000, $47,000 it is far better value for money, more efficient, more space inside and has pretty
15:55much just as many features. So let me know what you reckon in the comments section below, do you
15:59think this is priced right? I think if you are looking at a CX-5 and you want something premium
16:03perhaps have a look at the GT model which is one step down or even go a little further down, I think
16:08there is value to be had in the Mazda range but I just don't think this is it. So let me know,
16:13comment section below, is it too expensive? What are you going to buy instead? If you did enjoy
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16:24reviews but until next time, take it easy.