2023 Mazda CX-8 (inc. 0-100 & autonomous) 7 seat SUV review

CarExpert

While Mazda goes to town on upgrading its SUV range with bigger engines and bigger prices, older models like the CX-8 are still on sale. Paul Maric reviews the 2023 Mazda CX-8.  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 CX-8 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda/cx-8  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 01:03 Interior: 02:35 Infotainment: 03:34 Safety Tech: 04:29 Practicality: 05:05 On the Road: 09:19 Performance: 15:32 Verdict: 18:44  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 #cx8 #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So, Mazda's SUV range at the moment is pretty confusing. You have SUVs that

00:06 have become very expensive and those that are still kind of not that expensive, and this is

00:10 one of those. It's called the CX-8, and this actually provides pretty good value for money

00:14 if you're after a seven-seater but don't want to spend megadollars. This one here is the G25

00:19 GT SP, so that means petrol four-cylinder, and it also means that it's roughly mid to higher spec

00:26 in the range. This is priced at just under $60,000, but if that's too expensive, the entire

00:30 range kicks off closer to the $50,000 mark. This competes with things like the Skoda Kodiaq,

00:36 the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace, all of those smaller seven-seaters that have occasional

00:41 seven-seat usage as opposed to adults for that third row. Now, today we're going to do a detailed

00:46 review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use

00:50 the time codes on the screen, or if you are on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters

00:54 below, and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell

00:58 icon as well so you can find out every single time we drive a very red car. So you've got eight

01:04 colours to pick from, half of them are free, the other half will cost you $795, they're the premium

01:09 ones. I actually really like the look of this car still, I think it is a very smart looking vehicle,

01:13 especially in this red. This red has stood the test of time, I reckon. Down the front here you've

01:18 got a big old grille there, which seems to be the way Mazda does things, a lot of piano black there

01:24 around the grille. In fact, this is like a, I don't actually know what colour that is, but it is

01:28 reflective and it looks quite nice. Big Mazda logo there, bit of piano black down this bottom section,

01:33 and then an open section for cooling as well. Over here you've got a set of full LED headlights with

01:39 LED daytime running lights, I love that sort of ring design they have around there at the moment.

01:44 Whip around to the side here, this is where you're going to find your 19-inch alloy wheels.

01:49 It's a straightforward designer piano black finish, but it really blends in nicely with the bodywork,

01:53 so you have that piano black around the wheel arches there and the sole red finish as well.

01:58 200mm ground clearance, but this is just front-wheel drive here in the petrol trim,

02:02 so you're not going to be really doing any off-road driving with it. Up the top here,

02:06 piano black on your wing mirror with an indicator built into there as well.

02:10 Got body-coloured door handles and then black that continues all the way down the bottom there.

02:14 Roof rails, sunroof, and then come around to the back with me. Around the back you'll find

02:19 full LED taillights, Skyactiv-G, which signifies this is the gasoline engine,

02:25 and then CX-8 off to the side here. Brake light just up here, and a shark fin aerial up the top.

02:30 So let me know what you reckon about the design. Do you think this has aged well? Let me know down there.

02:35 So we are inside the CX-8. This is what the key looks like. So you've got the Mazda logo,

02:40 then you have the buttons on the side. You've got lock, unlock, boot. It's a proximity sensing key,

02:45 so you can leave that in your pocket. You've got a push button start just here.

02:48 In terms of the presentation, this is a bit dreary. It's quite dark in here,

02:52 but I actually quite like the way this looks. It does feel high-end and premium,

02:56 and then when you compare it to some of the other competitors in this price bracket at this price

02:59 point, this actually feels like you're getting a whole lot more value for money. A lot of piano

03:04 black down here, unfortunately, but outside of that, you're getting soft touch surfaces,

03:08 and all of these touch points are really nice and soft as well. How soft are they? Well,

03:13 we've got our durometer. We've tested the main surfaces inside this car. If you do want to see

03:18 how this one compares to others that we've tested before, look at the link in the description below.

03:22 Now, build quality. What is that like? So that all feels pretty nice and solid. Door slam test.

03:33 Sounds good. Let's talk infotainment. So you have a 10.25-inch display. This has been supersized now.

03:39 You also have a digital display ahead of the driver too. This is really high resolution.

03:44 Unfortunately, it's not a touchscreen. You do have satellite navigation built into there. AM/FM/DAB

03:50 digital radio with a 10-speaker Bose-branded sound system. It's a good sound system.

03:55 You do have smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay is

04:00 wireless, so it's quite clever. You just push this down there to access that, and then you scroll

04:04 through all these different menus. So it's a pretty sort of decent setup, nice and quick too.

04:08 Pretty sort of impressive setup there. And this is what Android Auto looks like.

04:13 So again, wireless, full screen integration there. And then I'll show you what it looks like with the

04:21 menu as well. So yeah, really nice setup here. I quite like what they've done with this. It's

04:25 just nicely integrated and everything just works exactly as it should.

04:29 Let's talk safety. So you have autonomous emergency braking, which is the tech that

04:33 stops the car if you don't. Got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror. You have radar cruise control

04:38 with a lane centering function, which we'll test a little bit later on. You have a blind spot

04:42 monitor built into the wing mirror just over there. Recross traffic alert, front and rear

04:46 parking sensors, and a reverse view camera. This is what it looks like. Pop that into reverse.

04:52 Yeah, quality is not too bad. So I can clearly see what it says on the suitcase there. So

04:56 not bad. And then you have the sonar here for front and rear.

04:59 Now, horn sound. This is what it sounds like.

05:02 Moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with our connectivity. So in the centre console

05:11 here, you've got two USB-C ports. You've also got a 12-volt outlet hidden under there. In terms of

05:16 storing your phone, you've got a wireless phone charger down the front here. You can pop your

05:20 phone kind of anywhere else you want. Coffee cup. Let's see how that goes. Very nice. Even my little

05:26 coffee cup fits in there without getting de-lidded. Same story with the water bottle. Fits in fine.

05:32 You've got teeth in there to hold it into place. Water bottle fits inside the door for the little

05:36 one. Try the big one as well. Fits inside the door too. Excellent. Other storage. So you've

05:42 got this centre console here that's sort of reasonably sized. There's a glove box down here

05:47 as well that's reasonably sized too. And finally, you have a sunglasses holder up the top.

05:52 Now let's talk about comfort. So you have dual zone automatic climate control up the front here.

05:57 You have heated seats. You've got electric seat adjustment for the driver and front passengers.

06:01 You can go forwards and backwards. Your backrest can go forwards and backwards. You can lift the

06:06 front. You can lift the back. You also have lumbar adjustment there, along with seat memory for the

06:12 driver's side. These seats are super comfy too. So you are all set for a long distance drive.

06:18 Steering offers both tilt and reach adjustments. And on our reach test, all of these controls are

06:24 easy to reach while you're driving. So second row, what's it like? There's actually a lot of room

06:29 back here. So knee room's great. Toe room's excellent. Headroom is really good as well.

06:34 You have a third zone of climate control here with heated seats for the two outboard seats,

06:39 air vents, mat pockets, you've got privacy blinds. Also, centre console here with two cup holders.

06:48 It's got rubber teeth in there, plus this little lidded area that has two USB-A outlets as well.

06:53 Bottles go inside the door too. In terms of seating for the little ones, two ISOFIX points

06:58 on the outboard seats, but you've got four top tether points in total. Two on the outboard seats

07:02 and then two for the third row. These seats move forward because this is a three-row SUV. It gives

07:08 you a little bit more room for your third row. You can slide that forward and recline them a little

07:12 bit as well. So really good spot to be seated. Now, our window test. So it's auto up and down.

07:18 Oh, look at that. All the way down. Very impressive. Now, third row. The other cool

07:24 thing is that this almost opens 90 degrees, which means getting baby seats and babies in and out of

07:30 here is going to be much easier. But getting into the third row is pretty straightforward. You push

07:34 this, wait for that to collapse, and then once it does, you can pull it out of the way. Now,

07:40 this is a kid-only zone, but I'll show you what it looks like with an adult in there regardless.

07:44 Okay, so pull this back. Oh, it is very cramped back here. So yeah, look,

07:55 toe room is non-existent. Knee room is pretty non-existent. But do keep in mind,

07:59 you can pull the second row forward to give yourself a bit more room, but it will compromise

08:03 knee room for your second row of passengers. You've got cup holders off to the side, USB-A

08:08 ports on either side. So from that point of view, it's pretty good, but no air vents back here,

08:13 which is a little bit disappointing. What's your cargo space like? Well, let's crack it open.

08:18 You've got a powered tailgate, very slow powered tailgate. So here you have a little over 200

08:25 litres of space available, which isn't too bad. Beneath here, you have a little storage area plus

08:30 a space saver spare tyre. I'll show you what it looks like with the bags in here. So

08:34 laptop bag there. I'm curious to see if this will actually fit.

08:38 It does, but does it close? Let's find out. Tuck that in, otherwise I'll cut my laptop in half.

08:47 Oh, fantastic. That is awesome. So you can actually fit a medium-sized suitcase plus a

08:53 laptop in there, which is good to see. All righty, we'll take this out. You can then expand the space

08:58 a little bit more by dropping this third row out of the way. Once that is out of the way,

09:04 you have just under 800 litres of cargo space available with some hooks off to the side,

09:09 12-volt outlet under there. You can expand it even further though if you do drop the second row.

09:14 That expands the space to just under 1800 litres. Okay, so we've just hit the road in the CX-8.

09:23 It is worth just pointing out quickly that if you go for a petrol variant,

09:27 not only is it naturally aspirated, but the petrol variants are also front-wheel drive as well. So

09:32 the only way you can get yourself into an all-wheel drive is through a diesel. So

09:36 just something worth keeping in mind. So this particular variant, the G25, uses a 2.5-litre

09:41 naturally aspirated four-cylinder petrol engine. It makes 140 kilowatts of power and 252 newton

09:48 metres of torque, so not a huge amount, and that's all mated to a six-speed automatic transmission.

09:54 How does all that feel behind the wheel? Let's give it a little punch here.

09:57 Yeah, look, the transmission's actually nice and quick and sharp, but yeah, it just really doesn't

10:04 have much torque. You sort of even, when it's screaming there, you don't really feel that push

10:09 in the back. So I think if you are after some torque or perhaps you want to do some towing,

10:14 because it is worth keeping in mind this has 1800 kilos of brake towing capacity,

10:18 it is slightly higher with the diesels, and you are limited anyway to down ball weight of 150

10:24 kilos, but if you do want to tow, I would go down the path of the diesel instead of the petrol.

10:28 So what does that mean in terms of fuel economy? Well, Mazda claims a combined economy of 8.1

10:33 litres per 100 k's. We are currently sitting on 10.1, so a little higher than that claim,

10:40 but still not that bad when you consider the size of this thing. If you go down the path of

10:44 something like a Kluger, like the V6 version of the Kluger just chewed through the gas,

10:48 even now the new turbocharged 4 is still a little bit thirsty when you consider the size. Obviously,

10:52 a Kluger is a bit bigger, but I think that's actually a pretty reasonable fuel economy.

10:56 Now let's talk sine waves. We'll jack the speed up a little bit here to 130 k's an hour,

11:01 maximum speed limit in Australia, and also the speed you might hit when you're overtaking. These

11:06 sine waves give us a really good idea of what this is like in terms of body control. So here we go.

11:13 Whoa, I think it just left the ground there. It is very floaty. Yeah, that dialled a lot of

11:20 softness into the ride, and as a result of that, when you hit those sine waves, it just lingers

11:25 right up the top there. That's going to be amplified with the more passengers you have

11:28 inside the car as well, so keep that in mind. That is something just to take note of. It means

11:34 that in and around the city, the ride is actually really nice. So if you hit potholes, speed humps,

11:38 that kind of thing, it's actually really good. But when you are touring in the country and you

11:42 do hit those consecutive sine waves, it is going to buck about a little bit.

11:45 Rough road time, so with a soft ride, I think this actually should be pretty good. So we do

11:50 this at 90 k's an hour. It's a shocker of a road. Look at this already in the early stages of these

11:58 corrugations. It's actually getting along really smoothly. Here comes our condensed sine wave.

12:03 It's going to shake the crap out of the car. Yeah, it's not too bad. It's not overly skittish on

12:10 that. So yeah, look, I think one of those side benefits of having that softer ride is that if

12:15 you do hit this type of road or you drive in the country often, it is going to feel nice and

12:20 comfortable but still quite composed. Now let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the

12:25 front of the car there. The wing mirrors are big, but it's kind of like a narrow division there,

12:29 so it could be a little bit wider potentially, but it does have a blind spot monitor built into

12:33 there. Visibility out the back is okay. It's a narrow envelope, but the top of the seats don't

12:38 really get in the way of things and then you have the front rear parking sensors, cameras and all

12:42 that sort of fun stuff. Now you do have paddle shifters here on the steering wheel to row through

12:47 the gears manually and in addition to that you also have a sport mode, so you flick that up to

12:51 go into sport mode. Let's go for a little punt around the track here on a faster drive and see

12:56 what it's like. Obviously you're not going to be doing this every day of the week, but I'll test

13:00 all the cars back to back in the same way to see how they perform. A lot of body roll there. Yeah,

13:07 stacks of body roll and as a result of that you get that inside wheel flaring up when you get on

13:12 the throttle, but it is actually pretty manageable. You can be quite confident with the throttle and

13:17 you know exactly what the car's going to do and that body roll just makes it even more predictable

13:23 when you are sort of moving around. It's actually surprisingly sort of nimble and agile despite its

13:28 size. Brake pedal feel isn't great. It sort of feels a little bit wooden there. Let's see what

13:34 it's like on this faster section up the back. Tip it in through here. It's actually pretty good.

13:40 That sport mode's great. So it holds gears and it's more eager to drop down through the gears

13:45 as well. So yeah, look, I mean it's no sports car but it is surprising how much fun you can have

13:51 with it within its limits. Now let's talk about road noise. It is actually pretty quiet in here.

13:56 I'm quite impressed with that. It's very windy today as well and there's not a huge amount of

14:00 wind noise. So I think they've done a good job in terms of insulating the tyre noise because that

14:04 used to be an issue with a lot of Mazdas. Okay, time to test the semi-autonomous systems here. So

14:10 we use the three outer lanes at the proving ground and the whole concept is as we get to the outer

14:15 banking it actually needs to apply more torque to the steering to keep it within the lane and it

14:19 kind of simulates what you can expect out in real world conditions. So set that cruise control to

14:26 70 k's an hour and we'll wait for our steering to engage. That indicates that the car is sort

14:31 of taking care of it all. Okay, that is active. You can see the green steering there. So we'll

14:36 see how it goes here in the first lane. That's doing a decent job. It's staying

14:42 fairly centre in the lane. We'll jump over to the next lane.

14:45 Okay, wait for that steering to go green. There it is.

14:55 Yeah, it's pretty much riding the line there.

14:57 Yeah, I'd be pretty concerned if I was next to other... Yeah, we're riding line and it's just

15:04 gone over the line. I'd be concerned if we were close to other traffic as well. I think that's

15:08 probably a little close for comfort. We will try the outer lane anyways to see what that's like.

15:13 All right, wait for that steering to go green. There it is. Lightly let go of that wheel.

15:21 No, that's just totally failed. So yeah, look, it's a pass in lane one and

15:25 like a kind of pass in lane two, but definitely a fail in lane three. So I think that system

15:30 probably needs just a little bit of work. Performance testing time. Before we get into

15:35 that, I just wanted to remind you about Help Me Car Expert. We take our inspiration from our

15:40 friends at CarWow. If you do want to get connected to a dealer, we have a network of vetted dealers

15:45 that will help you get the best deal on a car and cars like this are in stock today, which is great.

15:51 Just Google Help Me Car Expert. It'll take you to the landing page on our site and give you all the

15:55 details on our company and how we do it and all that sort of fun stuff. So now you can tell it is

16:01 quite drizzly here, so this probably isn't going to be all that fun, but we'll see how we go. I'm

16:05 going to pop this into sport mode. I'll turn traction control off just so we can get a bit

16:09 of slip off the line and I guess we'll see what happens. We'll go all the way through to 120 k's

16:14 an hour as well so here we go. A little bit of wheels slip off the line but not too bad.

16:25 Alrighty so 60, 70, 80, 100 and there's 120. Took a little while to get there.

16:40 Actually took quite a long time to get there because I'm on the access road. Okay so let's

16:46 have a little look here. 9.93 seconds to 100 and 80 to 120, 6.66. So pretty slow and that is just

16:54 with one person in the car so you can imagine if you loaded this up, take quite some time to

16:59 overtake and do that kind of thing. So yeah not amazing. Let's go back for a break from 100 k's

17:04 an hour. Dial up 100 k's an hour, hopefully. Okay and there's our marker.

17:14 Oh I forgot to put that away. Oh took a little while to stop there and look to be honest it is

17:24 pretty damp out there so this is going to be very much a wet result. Yeah 3.62 seconds and 50.57

17:31 meters. That is a really really long stopping distance. Yeah that's quite surprising. Even some

17:39 of the bigger SUVs in the wet really don't take that long to stop. So I might give that one more

17:45 crack just to make sure there wasn't anything funny going on there but let's just see what

17:49 happens when we do it one more time. Okay let's have another crack at this. There's 100.

17:58 Okay I can see my tyre marks there. That was definitely better. So

18:02 it's a little look at that. Could have just been an anomaly there. It's 3.3 seconds 47.3 meters so

18:08 definitely better but still not amazing. So I will sort of put that down to the fact that it is a

18:13 little bit damp out there at the moment so it's just something worth keeping in mind. If you do

18:17 want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before we're building up that

18:21 database. There is a link in the description below and also if you want to see the app that we're

18:25 using for this testing I'll leave a pinned comment down below as well. Okay it's your

18:30 favourite performance test. How fast will it go in reverse? Here we go. Turn off traction

18:35 control as well just to see if it helps. All right 36 kilometres an hour.

18:43 So Mazda's CX-8 what do we reckon? Look I think that everything is great. It is just let down by

18:52 the engine. It just doesn't have the punch that you want and certainly if you are loading it up

18:56 with people it is going to feel positively slow as you try and overtake and stuff like that. So

19:02 I think that is worth keeping in mind. It is worth considering the diesel if you do need that extra

19:06 punch. If you're just driving in and around the city it's fine but yeah it is the only Achilles

19:10 heel of what is otherwise a pretty impressive machine. So let me know in the comments section

19:14 below what do you reckon about the CX-8? Have you bought one? What has it been like? I'm keen for

19:20 your feedback. If you did enjoy this video please make sure you like it and you share it with your

19:24 mates and if you haven't done so already subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until

19:28 next time, take it easy.

Category

Transcript

Recommended