Mazda has upended its SUV range in Australia and introduced a stack of new six-cylinder models. Confused about all the new names they've made? Yep, so are we! Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the five seat Mazda CX-70 Azami to see if it's any good.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Mazda CX-60 petrol v diesel review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CrSajeqkZs
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:17
Interior: 04:03
Infotainment: 05:30
Safety Tech: 07:11
Practicality: 07:44
On the Road: 11:05
Driving aids: 17:31
Performance: 18:29
Verdict: 20:15
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.
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#mazda #cx70 #review
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Mazda CX-60 petrol v diesel review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CrSajeqkZs
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:17
Interior: 04:03
Infotainment: 05:30
Safety Tech: 07:11
Practicality: 07:44
On the Road: 11:05
Driving aids: 17:31
Performance: 18:29
Verdict: 20:15
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:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#mazda #cx70 #review
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00to see how well it performs okay so that's locked in there it goes again it's like straddling the
00:09line and now telling me that it's about to go over it and did go over it and it's not very good at
00:14all g'day i'm paul if you're confused about mazda's new suv range well join the club i'm still pretty
00:19confused and i'm meant to be an expert at all this this is the mazda cx70 so new suv from mazda
00:25this is the way that it works so cx70 and cx90 are basically wide body american sort of versions
00:32of mazda's new six-cylinder suvs the cx60 and the cx80 uh narrow body versions and the lower numbers
00:40are five seat the higher numbers are seven seats so this being the cx70 is a five seat version of the
00:46cx90 effectively so that means it has a pretty high price tag especially here in the top spec
00:52azami trim this is going to set you back just under 84 000 which is a big old chunk of change
00:57available as a petrol and a diesel as well and we have actually compared the petrol and diesel versions
01:02of this engine previously so if you do want to see that video have a look at the description below
01:06where we have a link there to watch that video now today we're going to do a detailed review of this
01:10so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this video you can use the time codes that are on
01:14the screen if you're on youtube you can scroll down and use the chapters below now let's talk about
01:18design optional colors they're going to set you back around a thousand dollars in terms of the
01:22design itself oh by the way today i'm wearing nature's botanical as our fly repellent you'll
01:27know that here in summer the flies are genuinely out of control and so far it seems to be working
01:33but let's see if my swatting increases throughout the video um in terms of the design look it does
01:38look pretty similar to the cx90 and in saying that it looks pretty similar to the cx60 and the cx80
01:43as well uh which i just don't think is a really good idea because if i can't tell them apart how
01:48is a consumer meant to tell them apart aside from the prices you know what i mean it's sort of just
01:52a little bit confusing in my opinion but in terms of the design itself just like the cx90 i actually
01:56think this looks pretty good the the wider frame of this just gives it a bit more uh stance on the
02:01road you've got led lights off to the side there you've got this sort of um shadow chrome as igor
02:06calls it he's got something like that on his bicycle uh just off to the side there and down the
02:10grill as well and then a little led light in there as well big grill over here with the mazda logo
02:16there and then you've got a little inlet here for cooling as well and some aero off to the side
02:21now jump over to the side here with me let's have a look at these wheels so we're sitting on 21s here
02:28sort of decent profile 45 profile rubber you've got a machined finish there on the outside and then a
02:33piano black finish on the inside there i actually quite like the concept of a six-cylinder engine because
02:38it is just you know breath of fresh air into into this segment uh but i don't know let's see if it
02:44drives better than the last one of these that i drove which was so clunky it uses an in-house
02:48transmission and it just wasn't very well tuned so we'll see how that goes uh today you've got no
02:53privacy glass again just a really bizarre thing for a top spec model it means you're gonna have to
02:57spend your own money to go get tinted windows uh you do have a shade there which i'll sort of run you
03:02through and we have a look at the inside but privacy glass would have been a nice thing to have
03:06come around to the back with me igor has just confirmed that he has no shadow chrome on his
03:11bike because he spent more on his bike than he does on uh his car but anyway uh you've got this
03:16big boot uh and it extends sort of all the way down to the back there as well fly swatting starting
03:22to pick up uh the boot sort of extends towards the end there and gives you a lot more boot space a lot
03:26of these sort of coupe style suvs cut off early and you really do shave a lot of your boot space off but
03:32sort of extends nice and confidently out the back there you've got the mazda logo here you've got
03:36brake light integrated up the top there sky active e sky active g which is basically 48 volt mild hybrid
03:43gasoline engine the diesel ones have a d unsurprisingly full led taillights and then cx70
03:49all-wheel drive over here as well a bit of a diffuse down the bottom there too so let me know what you
03:54reckon about the design in the comments section below do you think it looks good do you reckon they
03:58could have done better are you confused by the master suv rage like i am let me know down there
04:03so we're inside the cx70 let's start off with the key you've got a mazda logo there nothing on the back
04:10you've got lock unlock boot proximity sensing key so you can leave that in your pocket then you have a
04:16push button start okay so let's talk about this interior and the design and stuff like that look
04:22the design is sort of fairly pleasing you've got soft touch materials along the dashboard there all
04:26that stuff soft touch as well does it feel like it's worth mid 80 you know 90 000 on the road does
04:32it look that nice i'm not convinced like i don't know this material just looks a bit cheap and you
04:38know even just it just looks a little bit bland so um yeah i don't know that it feels like it's worth
04:43that price tag you can spend an additional something like three and a half grand to get a tan
04:47nappa leather interior with that sort of bentley style steering wheel with the the dual tone on it
04:53i guess that would sort of improve the look of it but to be honest uh i just i just don't know
04:58they've done enough to justify the price tag and i think that they've probably buried um the
05:02justification for price tag in the engine and this being a six cylinder so um but yeah anyway uh
05:07touch points so what do they feel like nice and soft they're soft on the door as well how soft are
05:12they we've got our durometer we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin if you do want to see how
05:16this car compares to others that we've tested before have a look at the link in the description below
05:20yeah build quality what is it like fairly solid through there that all feels good that's what
05:26the door slam sounds like now let's talk about infotainment so one of the benefits you get by
05:33i guess spending this sort of money is that you're getting the bigger infotainment screen
05:36and that's all controlled through this central dial down here so all pretty straightforward to use it is a
05:42bit disappointing it's not a touchscreen so it's all sort of done through here you don't have the
05:46option of using it as a touchscreen unless you're in carplay in some circumstances uh and using that
05:52smartphone mirroring function so i don't know if you can do it in carplay why can't you then just do
05:58it normally i don't really understand why it can only operate in smartphone mirroring so a bit weird
06:03um inbuilt satellite navigation uh that works pretty well with the voice recognition system
06:08and then you can jump through shortcuts to get to things like carplay by just
06:13flicking over to the side there that takes you to carplay unfortunately though this has
06:18thing that i've mentioned a number of times now in mazda products if i wanted to jump over to this
06:23menu on carplay i can't do that because then just you have to go all the way across everything it
06:29should just jump straight across there um so yeah just just a minor grievance uh of mine but um
06:35anyway for the most part it works fine uh so that is what apple carplay looks like full screen
06:39integration it's wireless as well and i'll show you what android auto looks like so same story again
06:44full screen integration all sort of works pretty straightforward now sound system it is a 12 speaker
06:51Bose branded sound system pretty decent sound system and Bose sound brand as well so uh you know you're
06:58getting your sort of value there in terms of the screen ahead of the driver now the 12.3 inch display
07:02not a huge amount of configuration you can do there but you can change some of the screens
07:06in terms of what is appearing in front of you but not really sort of much else more from there
07:11now on the safety front you have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist
07:16detection you've got an auto dimming rear vision mirror you've got a blind spot monitor built into
07:21the wing mirror radar cruise control with a self-steering function that we will test later on
07:26you have front rear parking sensors and a 360 camera i'll show you what that looks like
07:30so there's your wide angle front view and then you've got a closer in front view as well so the
07:35quality of that's actually not too bad is a little bit sort of distorted around the edges there but
07:39fairly sort of clear through the central part and this is what the horn sounds like
07:42now practicality we'll start off with your connectivity down the front here you've got
07:47a wireless phone charger with a 12 volt outlet um kind of a frustrating one and i don't know if it's
07:54just limited to iphones which have this incredibly silly hump here for the camera but if you do place
08:02your phone down there it slides around everywhere as you're driving accelerating it's just almost
08:08pointless so you kind of need either a case that that has a very grippy bottom on it but this isn't
08:14really a grippy surface either so yeah i don't know just not a great spot for a wireless phone
08:18charger you've got a couple of cup holders here and a bit more connectivity in the center console with
08:23two usb c ports center console is tiny as well which again i don't really understand given
08:28got all this space to work with but it sits quite high so you can't actually really fit anything in
08:32there away from prying eyes and you've also got a little coin tray down here as well storage inside
08:37the doors and then a glove box over here that's actually pretty reasonably sized and sunglasses
08:42holder up the top comfort you have dual zone automatic climate control heated and cooled seats you've got a
08:49heated steering wheel as well steering wheel is electrically adjustable for tilt and reach both the
08:54driver and front passenger get electric seats too so you can go forwards backwards backrest can go
08:59forwards and backwards you've got lumbar adjustment you can lift the front of the seat back of the seat
09:03then you've got memory down here as well and on the reach test uh kind of pointless given you can't
09:08use this as a touchscreen but well you can when it's in carplay so i guess you know reaching forward
09:13to use carplay it's also too far to reach as well yeah second row what's it like uh knee room
09:19excellent toe room is great uh headroom is really good as well one of the good things about this
09:24second row given it does share its platform with the seven seat is that you can actually sort of
09:29get a full range of adjustment here on these seats so you get a lot of sort of configurability
09:32in terms of the space that you have you've got map pockets two usb-c charges third zone of climate
09:37control with headed seats for your outboard seats air vents there as well this window shade that i
09:42mentioned earlier great but would love to see just privacy glass big glass roof as well that opens
09:49which i think is pretty uh pretty nice to see led lights uh isofix points on your two outboard
09:54seats with top tether and then let's do our window test so it's auto up and down
09:59so close now let's talk cargo space you've got a powered tailgate crack that open
10:07that's low there we go that's better um so before you drop the second row you've got just
10:16over 900 liters to work with uh up to the ceiling beneath the cargo floor you've got a little bit of
10:22storage there and then a bit of storage under there as well which is where the the third row
10:26would be in the cx90 it's actually not a bad space but it does feel quite high i don't know
10:32whether it's just the where those seats are located at the moment it does sort of feel like
10:35it's sitting a little bit high uh you've got power off to the side here so it's a 220 volt outlet
10:40150 watts so fairly useful uh you've got 12 volt outlet off to the side there as well with some bag
10:46hooks show you what it looks like with our suitcase in there kind of just gives you an idea of what
10:52the the space is like so picture a pram or something in there and then uh finally if you do
10:57want more space you can drop the second row from here
10:59then once that is out of the way you have just over 2 000 liters to play with
11:06okay we've just hit the road in the cx70 now we have done a pretty comprehensive comparison between
11:14diesel and petrol in this new generation six cylinder mazda range so if you do want to check
11:20that video out i've left a link in the description below um but in terms of what what is actually
11:27driving this it's quite interesting mazda went from pretty much just doing four cylinders
11:31whether they were diesel or petrol to to a six cylinder and it's new engine uh the transmission
11:37is in-house there's a lot of work that's gone into this uh hundreds of millions of dollars on
11:41the bet that people want premium and premium means a big cylinder count now what does all that
11:46mean so under the bonnet 3.3 liter turbocharged six cylinder petrol engine it makes a pretty healthy
11:52254 kilowatts of power 500 newton meters of torque and it is mated to an in-house eight speed automatic
11:58transmission show you what that feels like we'll just sink the boot in here moves along really nicely
12:04it takes a little bit of time to wind up but once it's moving it is it is moving along really nicely
12:09the only downside is that being an in-house transmission it just doesn't have that level
12:15of feel that a lot of uh you know transmissions are going to have from from brands like zf where
12:20you know one of the main things they do is transmissions and you do feel that at low speed
12:26this is definitely nowhere near as bad as the cx90 when i first drove that and cx90 i was just
12:31surprised that they just did not put any effort into into the smoothness and responsiveness here
12:37if i take off from a standing start this actually feels a lot better nowhere near as clunky it doesn't
12:42have those clunky sounds that the cx90 had now a lot of those were addressed as part of a software
12:46update for the transmission and if you're an owner of a cx90 uh or cx60 let me know in the
12:51comment section below did those updates actually fix the vehicle for you i'm keen to know whether
12:57that solved your problems but here it appears to to be quite nice to drive now let's talk about
13:0248 volt mild hybrid as well so i'll see if i can get that to activate now we'll just come to a stop
13:07basically what it does is it allows the vehicle to run auxiliary systems on a 48 volt circuit
13:13you can see it's not activating because we've got the ac running there but if i switch that off
13:17it allows us to to basically run all of those systems that are quite sort of energy intensive
13:21without the vehicle having to be on and the advantage of that is that you're able to
13:26to then take off really smoothly because that it has a an integrated starter generator i'm going to put
13:31the ac back because it's bloody roasting it here um it has an integrated starter generator and that
13:35is basically what is turning the engine on instead of a typical sort of starter motor and just on the
13:40topic of ac today is hot like it's it's 31 degrees so it's not really hot but it is just hot like you
13:46just feel it and i gotta tell you this air conditioning really needs some work it is just
13:51if you set it to auto at 22 degrees in most cars after five or ten minutes it sort of starts settling
13:57down a bit this is still pumping away as hard as it can because it just cannot reach those
14:01temperatures so um yeah i think they probably need a slightly larger air conditioning system in this
14:06now masda claims a combined fuel economy of around eight liters per 100 k's a complication with today
14:12is we've had to film everything in a topsy-turvy order so i've already done all the nasty fast driving
14:16and it's bumped the fuel economy up to 12.7 when we did get here which was mixer highway and city
14:22driving it was sitting at around nine so close enough to that figure but you know it is a turbo
14:27charged six-cylinder petrol engine in a vehicle that weighs over 2,000 kilos it is going to be pretty
14:32thirsty if you do get up it now what's the ride like well let's crack it up to 130 k's an hour for
14:38our sine wave here we test all cars at the same speed here and it's basically the maximum speed
14:45limit in australia until it's a little bouncy through there on the lead up to it but we do it
14:50at 130 to see what the body control is like okay here we go yeah look that actually doesn't feel
14:58too bad so it's got a little bit of float about it but that actually links to the way that it rides
15:02in and around the city in and around the city it is actually quite comfortable and this is the trick
15:07that they missed with the cx60 it was just a bit of an abomination in terms of its ride it was way
15:12too firm whereas this this definitely has that level of comfort to it and it doesn't feel overly
15:18firm or or even overly soft it's just a really good sort of mixture there for a family vehicle
15:23okay bumpy road time let's see what it's like on our terrible corrugated country road here we do
15:29this at 90 k's an hour yeah that feels pretty comfortable it's that softness that gives you
15:36the the confidence there behind the wheel so that actually doesn't feel too bad here's our sine wave
15:42even there it's falling into all those divots nicely it's not riding over the top of them and
15:48skating around like some toyota products do so yeah that actually feels really nice and well
15:53sorted from a ride and handling point of view yeah let's talk about drive modes you've got your
15:57little m drive selector you've got sport normal and off-road let's go for a little fang around the
16:01track we test all cars in the same way to see what they're like once the speed picks up
16:06all right here we go a little bit of understeer through there you know the interesting thing this is
16:15actually built on effectively a rear wheel drive architecture so it's rear wheel drive first instead
16:21of a lot of vehicles in this segment which are front wheel drive then rear wheel drive this actually
16:26begins as rear wheel drive and it means that when you are going hard and it actually has those
16:30characteristics of a rear wheel drive vehicle and that softness to the ride kind of just makes it
16:36really predictable you know exactly what it's going to do and it feels nice and strong and sporty
16:42behind the wheel which is not what i was expecting from a vehicle this size it's that predictability
16:47that gives you the confidence to sort of push it just a little bit harder and that engine is
16:51fantastic the mid-range is great and then here on the back straight i'm going to give it just a little
16:55bit of a punch yeah there it is there that is so good it has legs that is so nice and the sport
17:02mode's great ironically while the gearbox isn't great in and around town the sport mode's fantastic
17:06it's holding gears it's just doing everything you want a sport mode to do
17:09now let's talk about road noise on the road it is actually not too bad you do get a little bit
17:14of time noise on coarse chip surfaces we did put it up against our calibrated sound meter and this is
17:19how it went if you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before
17:23look at the link in the description below now if you are going to do any towing you've got a two
17:26and a half tonne braked towing capacity okay time to test our lane support system so we do this at
17:3470 k's an hour see how well the car will hold itself within its lane so there's 70 so the steering wheel
17:42has gone green so we'll see what it's going to do here it's hugging that left lane pretty tightly
17:48okay let's see how it goes on the next lane up we use our three outer lanes here to see how well it
17:56performs okay so that's locked in there it goes again it's like straddling the line and now telling
18:05me that it's about to go over it and did go over it and it's not very good at all all right we'll try
18:10the last lane as well see how this performs no it's not going to activate up here yeah look i think
18:20that um it just isn't really calibrated that well the fact that it's doing it in the easiest lane
18:25here on the bowl kind of just tells you it probably needs a little bit more tuning work okay time to do
18:30a little bit of performance testing to see how the cx70 accelerates uh we're going to go through to
18:35120 k's an hour so we'll log 0 to 100 and also 80 to 120 turn off stop start and traction control
18:42hopper into sport mode away we go
18:45a decent note as well
18:54all right there's 100
18:57and 120
19:01all right let's see how that went
19:05zero to 100 in 7.14 seconds and 80 to 120 in 4.38 seconds so both pretty respectable numbers i
19:15reckon um they're not not too slow like i mean if you have your family in this car you're going to
19:21confidently overtake you're going to confidently feel like you can get places without feeling like
19:26you're holding up all the traffic
19:27okie dokie let's get this up to 100 and see what our brake and tyre package is like
19:34there's 100
19:36all right actually felt pretty good from here uh so 100 to 0 2.88 seconds 39.59 meters so
19:48uh that number's not too bad between 35 and 40 is actually typically pretty good skid pan is also
19:53wet i have to drive onto the skid pan to get enough speed to get up here so
19:56tyres are slightly slightly damp but um yeah not not a bad effort um all right let's see how fast it goes
20:02in reverse here we go
20:04all right that is
20:1061 kilometers an hour not bad
20:14so mazda cx70 what do we reckon um look i think this is a car that is good by the sum of all its
20:21parts i think the interior could be a little bit better stuff like that infotainment system just the
20:26presentation could feel a lot more like a 90 odd thousand dollar car than what it does right now
20:30but it makes up for it with a really cracking drivetrain that you're not going to find in many
20:34other vehicles on sale today and as a family vehicle it kind of ticks all of those boxes as
20:39well so while you are paying a little bit more for this i i like it um but yeah i'm just a bit
20:43dissuaded by the price so yeah let me know what you reckon in the comments section below have you
20:47bought one of these what did you sort of decide on instead if you didn't buy one what do you reckon
20:51about mazda's sort of stance with all these suvs and stuff oh and by the way nature's
20:55botanical seems to work the sort of flies land and then they disappear so uh tick for that um and
21:01the thing that we thought didn't work which was the the tube that we did in our prado review
21:05actually seems to work we left it outside and it is like full of flies today so
21:09there you go uh if you did enjoy the video make sure you like it share it with your mates and
21:14until next time take it easy
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