If you look at reviews of the Mazda CX-90 online, you’ll find lots of criticism. Edmunds scored it dead last in a 9-car comparison and called the PHEV’s transmission “troublesome,” Motor Trend calls the SUV “the first Mazda we remember driving that is not deserving of our unconditional love,” and Car and Driver says its long-term test vehicle “came up short.” So I went into my Iowa vacation weekend expecting something disappointing, but in reality, what I found is a car that — while perhaps not best in its class — felt like a really solid three-row SUV. And when I looked at the used pricing, my mind was blown.
The Mazda brand right now is in a weird spot. Is it a performance brand? Is it a luxury brand? Is it an everyperson’s brand? Who knows. But I know my wife, a lifelong Lexus fan, likes premium cars, and given what Mazda has done with its interiors over the past decade or so, I was hoping the CX-90 would suit her liking.
So we hit Burbank Airport, and my son got to see the world from above for the first time; he was a huge fan:
Upon touchdown in Minneapolis, our Soul Red CX-90 media loaner awaited us in an airport shuttle lot:
It looks nice, and though the mostly black interior is a little bland, material qualities are impressive. My wife Elise says it’s “Not quite luxurious, but definitely premium.” I agree with her.
Elise, my child Delmar, and I loaded in, and we pointed the Mazda’s nose southwest towards our destination of Okoboji, Iowa, where we planned to meet up with Elise’s sister and her family at their lake house.
Even before we left the parking lot, I found three annoyances. The first is the shifter, which I’m surprised hasn’t been recalled yet given that — if you were to follow the long-standing PRNDL up-down shift pattern that was basically the standard for decades — you’d end end up putting the car into reverse instead of park. And it’s not just me saying this:
The second issue is storage. The Mazda doesn’t have much of it when compared to other family vehicles. There’s a glovebox; there are medium-sized, non-expandable door pockets; and there’s a really shallow center console. Other than some cupholders and a little wireless charger cubby that pops an error message up on the screen anytime you put a non-phone in it, there’s really nothing else up front. I want more.
The third annoyance is a small one, but something that people with kids will notice. When I walk to the car to load my kid up into his car seat, I grab the door handle and…nothing. That’s because the rear doors do not have keyless entry capability. If I want to unlock the rear door with the fob in my pocket, I have to grab the front door handle, then the rear. It’s not ideal; for someone loading kids into a family car, a rear door unlocking when I yank the handle would be helpful (my wife’s 2017 Lexus RX has keyless entry on all doors).
On the plus side, my son loved the panoramic roof; it kept him entertained during our three-hour drive from Minneapolis to Okoboji, Iowa.
From the airport lot, my wife drove the Mazda three hours in the dark as I worked. From the passenger’s seat, I noticed a bit of a firm ride over cracks in the pavement.
I also noticed that the headlights — which come standard with automatic high beams— are excellent. The brightness is good and the light spread is just right, which is comforting when you’re with your family in deer country.
Elise and I really liked the infotainment system, largely because we’re used to a dial-style infotainment controller in both her Lexus RX and my BMW i3. Simply bump the control dial to the right and click, and you’re using Apple Carplay, looking at Maps or Spotify or whatever. The screen is a bit far away, but it is a touchscreen when in Apple Carplay/Android Auto mode, which was occasionally useful even though I preferred using the dial.
The time in Okoboji was relaxed. I basically just hung out with family at their house, swam in a lake, checked out some museums, and ate good food. It was a super easy few days for the CX-90, which did its job beautifully.
When we hit up Walmart to stock the kitchen up for the week, the trunk swallowed everything:
Even with the third row up, there was more space than I expected:
And when it came time to load most of the crew into one car, I was yet again surprised. After having read so many reviews about how tight the interior is, I wasn’t expecting it to be reasonably comfortable back there for Elise’s sister and nephew. It seems to me that, so long as the combined height of the three people sitting in line doesn’t exceed about 17.5 feet (i.e. The average height of the driver and the two people sitting behind him/her is 5’9″), there’s enough comfort for somewhat long drives. 
The seat in the back is best suited for kids, but with three sub 5’9″ folks in a row, nobody was complaining about legroom, and in fact, the folks in the third row were happy with their cupholders, USB-C jacks, and dedicated third-row AC vents.
The one complaint I had about the seating situation involved my baby getting hurt. The second row bench is a 60/40 split-row, so if you’re in the last row and want to get out, you pull a latch and it slides and tilts the 60 (if on the driver’s side) or the 40 (on the passenger’s side) forward so you can step out. The problem I noticed was that my son had his arm reached out towards the inside of the car, and when I tilted/slid the 60 part of the bench forward, it and the edge of the car eat wanted to basically act like a giant pair of shears on his arm.
Luckily, I didn’t slide the seat forward with enough force to do any serious damage, though he was crying from the pain. I find the sliding mechanism to be intuitive, and I’m not sure how I’d suggest Mazda fix this or if they even should, but it’s just something to be careful of.
There wasn’t a whole lot to our time in Iowa; I just wanted to do midwestern things on my kid’s first trip to the region. And midwestern things we did; we rode a ferris wheel and I made my classic dad-joke about them all being made of iron:
My son got to enjoy his first merry-go-round:
Elise and I played putt-putt golf with her family while trying to keep Delmar from running around and bothering other golfers:
We explored local museums:
One museum even had a 97-year-old wooden “Funhouse Slide,” which Elise and I rode down on burlap sacks:
A big local treat is the nutty bar, along with root beer. The nutty bar is rectangular chunk of vanilla ice cream on a stick, with peanuts and chocolate on the outside; it’s simple and magical:
Also magical? The local delicacy called the “Tavern,” which is basically a loose-meat burger:
There was one point when I decided to head to the local Toyota dealership and charge the car to see what it’d be like driving the plug-in hybrid in all-electric mode. I was basically going to be driving just a few miles a day, so it seemed ideal.
Look at how cheap the energy is in Iowa; 14 cents per kWh!:
But 2.5 hours away from my family during vacation was not worth the 30ish miles the charge added to the CX-90’s range, especially since the vehicle drove rather strangely in EV mode. To me, it seemed like it was still driving like a gas car even after I forced it into EV mode, but doing a bit of research, I’ve learned that the CX-90 actually shifts in EV mode. From Edmunds:
To find out what was going on, we reached out to Dave Coleman, Mazda’s manager of vehicle dynamics for North America. “The shifting you’re feeling in EV mode is actual shifting,” he said. “The electric motor is between the engine and transmission, so the transmission is active no matter which power unit is working.”
…Coleman points out that, contrary to common belief, electric motors have powerbands similar to gasoline engines. “You can get more performance from a smaller motor if you use a transmission to keep the motor at an appropriate rpm,” Coleman said. “If you’re making a pure EV, it’s usually cheaper and easier to just use a bigger motor rather than adding a transmission. But in our case, we already have a transmission.”
There’s more to it. Coleman also notes that the way the CX-90’s all-wheel-drive system controls chassis behavior plays a role. “We vary the amount of coupling between the front and rear axles through the wet clutch that sends torque to the front wheels,” he said. “This changes the amount of yaw damping, which affects both the steering response and effort, so we can dial in steering behavior, and even tweak it for different situations.” By sending both power sources through the same transmission, Coleman says Mazda can keep this control consistent.
Nonetheless, it feels weird, and if I’m honest, overall the CX-90’s transmission was a bit clunky, shifting harshly during normal daily driving. I found the combined 323 horsepower from the electric motor and 2.5-liter naturally aspirated inline-four to be plenty, getting the vehicle up to speed quickly enough (0-60 is about 6-ish seconds according to a few sources), but it was sometimes a bit clunky getting there, and given what I’ve read about reliability, the slightly slower but lighter inline-six is the one to get (more on reliability in a bit).
After a few days in Iowa, we drove back to Minneapolis, and it was there in the city that I appreciated how much smaller the CX-90 felt to drive than it actually was. A 38.1-foot turning circle is fantastic for a three-row car — right there with the Toyota Grand Highlander. But it wasn’t even just the turning radius; the way the vehicle handled, its heavy but delightful steering (quite a few outlets have complained about the steering, but I enjoyed it), and just its general proportions that made it feel really not much bigger than my wife’s 2017 Lexus RX350. It’s a legitimately useful three-row SUV that’s not huge and plenty maneuverable, even in the parking lot of the Mall of America, where in this photo you can see how wide those rear doors open.
Here’s another look at that wide rear door opening, which can be useful for families:
We spent a day in the beautiful and highly progressive city of Minneapolis, checking out the mall, and gazing in awe at the St. Paul Cathedral:
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts was also magnificent:
And that was pretty much the whole vacation. Minneapolis to Okoboji and back to Minneapolis — a fine, relaxing midwestern family vacation.
The Mazda CX-90 Is Not The Best, But The Used Deals Are Bonkers
So you get the idea here: The CX-90 ain’t all that. Its transmission doesn’t shift particularly smoothly, the ride quality is a bit firm, storage isn’t amazing, space is decent but not great for tall passengers, I’d like passive entry on the rear doors, my son’s arm almost got guillotined, the shifter design seems like a bad idea, and it seems the radiant heat getting through the windows is higher than my wife’s Lexus:
The biggest concern people are going to have, though, is the reliability, which — especially on the early models — seems to be… well, not great. Consumer Reports Predicted Reliability for the CX-90, whether PHEV or not, is bleak.
I’ve read through lots of Reddit and Facebook and forum posts in which owners ask one another “Would you buy this car again?” and answers are usually mixed. There have been plenty of recalls, and many owners complain about software issues/repairs. But some have only good things to say about their vehicle’s reliability. So it’s a crapshoot; are the most recently built CX-90s more reliable than the early ones with teething issues? That’s what many owners suggest, but the jury is still out.
This uncertainty probably contributes to the CX-90’s poor resale value, or, to spin it positively, to the white-hot deals you can get on the second-hand market:
Wow. I am shocked.
A premium, three-row SUV with a turbocharged inline six, an eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive, Apple Carplay, automatic high-beam project headlights, and on and on can be had not even a couple of years old, with 50,000 miles on the clock, for $25 grand.
If it’s not obvious why these are such amazing sales prices, allow me to compare them to those of the Toyota Grand Highlander and Honda Pilot.
[Writer’s note: I just chose random listings, and have no affiliation with any of these dealers. The only dealerships I can vouch for are part of The Autopian’s partner Galpin, which is where I recommend anyone buy their Mazda or Honda. Right now, it looks like no 2025 CX-90s are on the lot, but Galpin does have one of the cheapest 2025 Pilots I’ve seen anywhere. -DT].
Obviously, there are more scientific ways to get average transaction prices on these vehicles, but based on an eye test, it looks like the CX-90 may be the cheapest premium, lightly-used three-row mid-size SUV money can buy. It even seems to be cheaper than even the Kia Telluride and the Jeep Grand Cherokee L.
Seriously, $25,000 for the CX-90 above, with a 280 horsepower turbocharged inline-six that gets a solid 28 mpg highway, all-wheel drive, a nice leatherette interior, great headlights, a useful infotainment system, and a reasonably usable third row? If Mazda managed to figure out the reliability bugs through recalls/changes to later model years, I’d be tempted to buy one, because I really enjoyed driving my family around in this pleasant but imperfect SUV.
Being an electronic shifter, I’m surprised it doesn’t default to Park if you shut it down while in gear. That’s what my car does. Sadly, if it ever dies at a light it will go into Park and I won’t be able to push it out of the way. There’s always a trade-off. I better check my manual and see if there’s an emergency Neutral finder.
My mom’s CX-90 goes into park if you shut it off in D or R or open the driver’s door in gear. My dad screws up putting into park every so often and when he gets back in he is confused when it won’t start because it isn’t in park on the shifter.
So, did you notice any notchiness in the steering a few degrees either side of dead center? That was my problem with a PHEV CX-90. Also, the center console area in the front is slightly crowned and slick. If you put anything down near the shifter, such as a piece of paper, a wallet, a set of keys, a key fob, sunglasses, regular glasses, ANYTHING, it will want to scoot off of either side wall, shoot back and get lost under acceleration, or end up in the cup holders or cubby. There are no protected horizontal spaces for incidental short-term storage. As for styling, if the CX-70 had the bumper from the CX-90, the one without the fake brake duct BS, I would have one.
That notchiness is actually the ADAS system. Get the major software updates done and that goes away.
I thought it was the ADAS, but even after disabling it the central notchiness was still present. It made it impossible to drive in a straight line on the highway.
My mom’s had it before the recall and software updates. With everything completed, it doesn’t have that extreme notchiness on the freeway anymore and is a pleasure to drive long distances, where it was exhausting before with the notchiness. Pre-software updates, even disabling the ADAS it would still be present.
I have no comments on the CX-90, other than it’s on my wife’s short list of replacements for her CX-5. However, our kids are now 15 and 13. She’s had the CX-5 for 11 years, so we are able to own vehicles for long periods of time. If she keeps the next vehicle a decade, the majority of that will be after both kids are adults, and so we aren’t sure if we should replace with a three row SUV or another smaller SUV like the CX-5 or CX-50.
Also, “The Tavern” appears to be a variation of a Maid-Rite. My dad’s side of the family is all from Iowa, and those are popular there. Loose meat on a bun, typically served with diced up onion, pickle, mustard, and ketchup, all wrapped up in wax paper so the bun gets soft from the steam. They are very plain, yet oddly delicious. Going over to my grandmother’s house and her serving up a plate of Maid-Rites all wrapped up in wax paper was a real treat.
I test drove a CX-90 when they first came out and liked it but that was during the PHEV recalls and I didn’t pull the trigger.
BTW Those cheap price examples look like BHPH lots, so I wondered if they were reliable. Carmax is a better barometer for dealer pricing on used cars, and indeed the CX-90s are dirt cheap! A ton of used CX-90s are former rentals, which would give me pause.
Side note: Mazda may be the last mainstream brand on Earth that offers service loaners.
“I also noticed that the headlights — which come standard with automatic high beams— are excellent.”
Were you able to confirm if the automatic high beams actually work properly in the sense of SHUTTING OFF when there is oncoming traffic or traffic ahead?
Based on my first hand observation, many of these automatic high beam systems DO NOT FUCKING WORK RIGHT and just stay on high beams continuously… causing excessive glare for oncoming traffic as well as traffic in front.
I FUCKING HATE THESE AUTOMATIC HIGH BEAM SYSTEMS.
I think Mazdas problems started with trying to be premium. The honest Mazdas were fine maybe even great and had value. Now they are just another sort of premium not premium wantabe with tons of problems and depreciation. It’s the same formula that doomed Nissian and the Nissan demo is heading toward Mazda. Cx-5 is turning into the new Altima. You can always find what seems like a good deal on a used Nissan but most people have learned it’s not a good idea. Now people are going to learn it’s not a good idea with Mazda as well. The way things are going Nissian will be ok again before Mazda.
I think the CX90 actually makes a better two row SUV which is why I bought a CX70 PHEV. Absolutely cavernous cargo area with only the two rows and I don’t have a need or want to carry 7 people. I find it interesting that David didn’t like the way it drove in electric mode. Yes, it shifts as normal, so maybe that is odd to a user of a full electric vehicle. Overall the car drives smoother in Normal mode when it has a charge than it does when the battery is depleted and running mostly on gas. Once the full electric range is depleted switching to Sport mode makes the experience much better. I think part of the issues with reviews on these is the writers don’t have enough time to really learn how the vehicle works. They have a few quirks but once you learn how the vehicle was designed to be used, it becomes a better vehicle. I also can’t believe that Mazda sends out press loaners with black interior. The black really doesn’t show off how nice the Mazda interior is. I generally like black interiors but all of the other colors Mazda does in the CX90/70 interiors are just so so much better. Overall we really enjoy the CX70. The dial for the infotainment took a little getting used to but now we both love it and feel its better than touch screen. Two recalls done at the same time and at almost two years in it has been trouble free. My wife rarely has to get gas as most of her driving is within the all electric range. Having a 220 charger at home also means 2 hour recharge time so the car is almost always fully charged except on long trips.
cx70 is the one to get. agreed
We picked ours up very soon after it was released because at the time it and the similarly named XC-90 were the only PHEVs in that size range available and we had a local mazda dealer but no local volvo. Overall we’ve really enjoyed it, we average over 2000 miles to the tank and if you get smaller wheels, the thicker tires drastically improve the ride quality. It’s been pretty reliable, there was one issue with the battery fluid heater early in, but literally nothing else since then. With out use case I’m sold on PHEVs but even with 3 kids I’d probably pick something smaller next time, we traded our truck for a land cruiser recently and we don’t need the mazda for long drives anymore.
My wife and I were considering one of these hard and they just wound up seeming a few fries short of a happy meal. I do appreciate how ambitious Mazda was with this vehicle, but it clearly needed more time in the oven. Between the list of recalls that would make Ford blush, the horrendous resale value, the suspect reliability, and all of the minor annoyances that are consistently brought up (the shifter, clunky transmission, etc.) I just don’t think they’re worth the trouble if you’re planning on using one as a family hauler.
Which honestly kind of sucks! They look great, they’re feature packed, and even the inline 6 is exponentially more fuel efficient than any of the non-hybrid competitors. But you need your hauler to be bulletproof and idiot proof, because when you have kids you have so much going on at all times that you just don’t have the capacity to be dealing with such a fussy vehicle.
I was hoping this would become the car it always could’ve been with updates, but the recent reviews suggest the flaws that were held them back initially are still present. If you’re in a pinch and can only spend $25,000 on a hauler I think you could do a lot worse, so David does have a point here. But if you’re buying new I don’t see any reason to consider one over the Highlander or Pilot….or even better, a Sienna.
I too was disappointed with the CX-90. I’m a big Mazda fan – I’ve owned three Protege/3 hatchbacks and my wife has a 2017 CX-9 which she bought new. She got a CX-90 loaner when her CX-9 was getting recall work done and neither of us liked it that much. I’m not a fan of the styling and the driving dynamics didn’t feel as good as her CX-9. At least it still has the control knob and didn’t go all touchscreens like on the CX-5.
Such a shame Mazda bungled these so badly.
Wow that is Nissan levels of depreciation.
I was looking at these, but the transmission scared me off.
Traditional (well, electronically controlled hydraulic) automatic but no torque converter?
I don’t like reinventing the wheel.
I’ve rented these twice this year, both base models (Select?) with minimal miles on them. Just returned one yesterday.
Both were reliable with no true “issues”, but here are some thoughts after multiple road trips:
I’ll say this: If you’re considering one of these, drive it first. I test drove a PHEV CX-90 when they first came out, and my wife and I both had decided it was a hard no before getting out of the parking lot. Shatteringly stiff ride, wobbling, limp structure that torqued and shook over every parking lot exit and camber change, and jerky, janky, banging shifts and transitions between ICE and EV. It was absolutely atrocious; borderline undrivable. And all that and ponderous, slow steering.
That’s a bummer because the interior design was great, the materials were excellent, it looks gorgeous, and the safety ratings are superb. I was ready to sign on the line until I pushed on the pedal.
After I drove it I told the sales guy my verdict. “Well,” he sniffed, “Mazdas are sporty. They’re not for everyone.”
I didn’t bother telling him that I W2W race a Miata a thousand laps a year.
David sees the wide rear door openings as useful, but all I can think about is how much more damage they can do to the adjacent car when the kid in the rear seat flings them open.
Mazda’s typically don’t have as good of resale as the comparable Honda/Toyota but these are atrociously bad. We traded in my wife’s 68k mile 2021 CX9 Touring (one step up from base) last year and got $22k for it. I really wanted to like the CX90, but just couldn’t stomach the space compromises, high insurance costs, and bad resale value over a new Pilot that OTD was the same money.
Did you get an insurance quote on a CX90?
When we replaced our CX5 with a CX90 our insurance shockingly only went up $5 per month.
Yeah, it was $93/month more than the CX9, the Pilot was only $5 more
Very interesting. Odd that ours was only $5 more than our CX-5 it replaced.
SO Glad for the appreciation of the wonderful city of Minneapolis.
I rented a CX-90 for a week and really liked it except for damnable knob for the screen. I really wanted a full touch screen.
Definitely takes longer than a week rental to get used to but now that I’m used to it I like it way better than having to touch the screen.
rented a cx90 a year for a week. i could not opperate the thumb wheel thingy. drove insane. liked the car a lot otherwise
That shifter reminds me of the odd choice Mercedes made in like 2009 to make their standard cars have column shift and the amg cars have a very similar 3 position plus button elsewhere for park.
Its such an unelegant solution to a problem that need not exist.
It feels like a choice stuck in the past and was made more odd because the flappy paddle shifters for sporty things worked both ways and all it does is make your cup holders have to move away from your hand.
Should note that all of your images CX-90’s for sale are base or near base models, while the other vehicles are high trim models.
The drivetrain tunnel between the captains chairs is almost disrespectfully tall. You can’t easily enter the car and go between the chairs to the rear, better to use the fold forward.
TBH, as the owner of a CX-90, the space between the captains chairs is too narrow for comfortable passage. I experienced the same with a previous gen Telluride.
Granted, my reference for comparison is a Suburban which has tons of space between captains chairs.
True, too tall for the tunnel, too narrow between the chairs.
Ferris puns? You really oughta take a day off.
Been eyeing these as a possible replacement for my wife’s car in a couple years in spite of not loving the styling, the PHEV 4 banger seems like a credibly nicer and more fun alternative to a RAV4 if I can talk her into the bigger size (we don’t really need a 3 row car). I’ve generally had great experiences with Mazda reliability and I believe the Hybrid hardware is from Toyota, so my hope is these should be pretty reliable. I really wish Mazda would offer the plug-in capability on the CX50 or CX5 as that would be our first choice.
Unfortunately the hybrids on these are all Mazda. The Toyota hardware only shows up in the CX-50 hybrid.
I like these, and would have taken them up on these used deals instead of the Highlander hybrid I bought, but there are too many reliability concerns (and I got a screaming deal on my Highlander based on cosmetic damage).
Ah good to know! I’d assumed since the CX50 was that these were too, that explains the teething problems that David mentions. Sadly that does somewhat sour me on these a little.
I love my Mazda 6, but this is a different beast. Something I would consider as not my main car given the risk. FWIW, I believe the warranty transfers on these things and goes to 60k miles, but def double check on that.
Alright:
First, thanks for the review David! 🙂 I had to google the bad dad joke about ferris wheels and it is indeed terrible.
Second, though I’ve only owned a couple of Miatas thus far, I kind of love Mazda insofar as a person can love a brand. Having said this, I’ll also say that I’m not the biggest fan of most of their newer models: the CX-50, the just-revised CX-5, and the CX-60/70/80/90/whatever. I don’t particularly mind everything gettting bigger, but the increased complexity of PHEV drivetrains and more screen-centric interiors is annoying. Importantly, the quality downgrade seen in the new CX-5 interior is also a major bummer, since interior quality was always a Mazda hallmark.
I agree that $25K for a lightly-used 3-row Mazda SUV is a steal. The teething/tech issues would give me pause though. I know that nobody will agree with me, but I’d honestly want to look at a 2.5T CX-9 or even last year’s CX-5 (before the new/current version). The 2.5 in naturally-aspirated or turbo form is proven reliable, and it makes enough oomph for most needs most of the time, given that the cars would never see an autocross track or the autobahn.
Though their interiors are tighter, the ‘old school’ CX-5 (2017 though 2025 I think) and the discontinued CX-9 have peak Mazda interiors and driving dynamics along with the proven drivetrain. Either of these vehicles strikes me as good enough to replace my semi-beloved first-gen Volvo XC90 at some point. JMHO… and I know it’s not a popular opinion.
Tangentially: I still think the Mazda 3 and CX-30 are great cars for the money, and I especially like that they haven’t yet be heavily revised like the CX-5 has (though it’s surely only a matter of time 🙁 ). If I wanted a smaller car or crossover, I’d definitely be shopping them.
Previous gen CX9 looks fantastic, imo much better than the 90. I haven’t driven one, though my dad had a first gen CX9 for years and it was better than any CUV I’ve driven that wasn’t a Porsche. Including imho the 1st gen Volvo XC90 he owned before it…though the Volvo had a nicer more premium feeling interior.
Agreed on the new CX5 was walking by one the other day and without spending too much time creeping looked it over some and inside and out it really does seem like a downgrade from the outgoing generation, which is a bummer they were imo one of if not the best vehicle in their class.
I will say I was a little disappointed in the turbo 2.5, it’s plenty fast in the CX30 I sampled it in but a bit bland in terms of engine character, almost felt like driving a diesel, lots of low end torque with a very flat curve, but really falls off at higher RPM and not especially good sounding. Which is a bummer, typically I think Mazda fours have been some of the best I’ve driven, rev happy, smooth, nice growl for a four. OTOH probably perfectly matched to most people’s CUV driving habits.
I’ve yet to drive a CX9 (and they sold so few, it might be quite a while before I do) but I’ve driven plenty of other Mazdas with the 2.5 both NA and turbo, and I’ve always liked it. Of course it feels more vigorous in the smaller Mazdas (i.e.: a Mazda 3) and I’d imagine some might fairly describe it as pokey in a biggish crossover like the CX9.
I drove a VW TDI (2000 Golf TDI) for 23 years and shortly after purchase, I got used to the sound and feel of the small diesel, even with an automatic. Soundwise, I hear plenty of gas cars that sound diesely in the real world: usually coarse turbo fours like in some older BMW 3s and of course, that 2.3 (was it?) supercharged four that Mercedes used to offer in the C-Class …that last gen with the rectangular headlights. Those cars are shockingly diesely in terms of their sound (to me). I haven’t driven those BMWs, but I did drive the C-Class with the fourbanger, but it was so long ago, I can’t really recall anything in terms of engine character. I recall that it felt fast enough to me, but I usually feel that about most cars.
I should really make an effort to hunt CX9s in Los Angeles before they’re all gone/too beat on.
I got to ride in a rental cx9 my brother had and it seemed very nice but I never drove it. A car enthusiast buddy of mine was considering one and told me he thought it was peppy rather than all out fast but still really liked it, I think he mostly pulled back because they wanted something bigger, but they live in a small town.
I still can’t quite believe that I’m driving a three-row SUV, having been a small car guy all my life. And one of the used cars I’m most interested in trying is yet another three-row SUV (albeit a smaller one).
If I knew how to use AI/agents/etc… I’d just tell it to do all the hunting for me and email me the results once a week or so. I.e.: ‘find me all the used and currently for sale 2nd gen Mazda CX9s within 100 miles of Los Angeles and email me the resulting links sorted by price.’
Lol i swear I’ve read some people have done that! Sadly there’s been more innovation and development in CUVs over the last 20 years, at least in the US interesting small or midsize cars have essentially evaporated 🙁
You’re absolutely right about Mazdas being an awesome value when they’re used. Couple years ago, I bought a 2017 CX-5 with extremely low miles. I’ve never been a huge Mazda fan, but my CX-5 was an absolute deal because it sold for $5k less than a RAV4 or CRV of similar age and mileage. I’ve been nothing but satisfied with my Mazda.