The Mazda CX-9: A Vehicle Teetering on Luxury

As we spent more time with the Mazda CX-9, it became clear that this vehicle is attempting to go upscale, which is Mazdas whole goal now. However, this approach is causing some of its core elements to compromise, making it a challenging product in today's market.

Mazda has always prided itself on its handling and dynamics, and the CX-9 is no exception. When you turn the wheel and navigate through turns and corners, the car does a great job, providing a pleasant driving experience. The ride control and body control are also impressive, with the car handling most pavement types well. However, when it comes to rough terrain or potholes, the CX-9 struggles to isolate each corner of the vehicle, leading to shock waves that can make the ride feel less rigid.

One major area where the CX-9 falls short is in its storage and interior capacity. While the seats are incredibly comfortable and soft, absorbing subtle impacts or smaller shocks well, they don't do as well when faced with more substantial bumps or rougher surfaces. This compromise becomes apparent in areas where every person we spoke to seemed to harp on about the lack of space. The CX-5 is not a major issue, but with newer products coming to market, this needs to change.

To improve its storage and interior capacity, Mazda may need to sacrifice some of the "Mazda-ness" that makes their vehicles so desirable in the first place. This could mean altering the platform or suspension to better handle certain frequencies or vibrations, which might come at the cost of ride quality on smoother surfaces.

The pros of the CX-9 are still numerous. The interior is a testament to Mazda's commitment to building well-appointed cabins, with comfortable seating surfaces and a physical control that works seamlessly alongside the infotainment system. While the newer infotainment unit may be less noticeable, it still functions admirably, especially with time.

However, when it comes to exterior design, some aspects of the CX-9 don't quite live up to expectations. The use of large chunks of plastic and chrome trim can make the vehicle look cheap from a distance, particularly when viewed from afar. Small details, like the stuck-on chrome trim, can also detract from the overall aesthetic.

In conclusion, the Mazda CX-9 is a mixed bag of pros and cons. While it still has its charms, particularly in terms of driving dynamics and comfort, it falls short in key areas, such as storage capacity and interior space. If you value these aspects above all else, the CX-9 may not be the best choice.

Comparison to Minivans

One of the most significant challenges Mazda faces with the CX-9 is competing in a segment where people care about two essential things: minivan-like space without having to buy a full-fledged minivan and absolute ride quality. By sacrificing some of the key aspects that make their vehicles desirable, Mazda has created a product that caters to drivers seeking a more premium driving experience.

In this regard, the CX-9 is not alone in its compromises. Other manufacturers have successfully addressed these issues with their own products. For example, the Telluride and new Highlander excel at providing ample space and comfort, while still delivering impressive handling and dynamics.

The Toughest Mazda Product

If we're being honest, the Mazda CX-9 is perhaps the toughest product for me to recommend. It's a vehicle that has sacrificed some of its core values in an effort to adapt to the American market. While it still has much to offer, it ultimately falls short in key areas that matter most to potential buyers.

On the other hand, some may find that the CX-9 is still a great choice for those seeking a premium driving experience without compromising on comfort and amenities. It's essential to weigh these factors carefully and consider your priorities before making an informed decision about this vehicle.

Final Thoughts

As we conclude our time with the Mazda CX-9, it's clear that this product has been a challenge to review. With its unique approach to catering to American tastes, Mazdas efforts have led to some compromises that may not be ideal for everyone. However, if you value comfort, driving dynamics, and a solid drivetrain above all else, the CX-9 remains a compelling choice.

Ultimately, it's essential to acknowledge the pros and cons of this vehicle and consider whether its strengths outweigh its weaknesses. By doing so, potential buyers can make an informed decision about whether the Mazda CX-9 is right for them.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm revisiting the Mazda cx-9 despite this being one of the older Mazda products it's worth another look namely because I was in the market for a larger hauler to transport my Teddy Ruxpin dolls and plenty of my camera gear among other things so let's talk about the interior space this is the last generation Mazda interior design and it still has held up very well when you get to the signature trim and I understand this is $47,000 which I'm not gonna get into right now but for that price when you look at the door panels there is a great use of soft touch materials and alloys the bottom half of the door doesn't look like it came from the Walmart discount then the middle section is pretty durable plastics then you get to these wood --is-- inlays if it's even real wood and the middle part of the door looks great the stitching the padding the leathers again looks superb the center dashboard or the dashboard has a very shallow depth to it it's not this enormous piece of plastic so the benefit is you feel like you're in a much bigger space than you really are the center stack area is a little large compared to some of the newer vehicles it takes up a lot of legroom over here specifically on the right side so if you have bigger legs you have to put your seat back this might be one of the issues but the physical controls in here are tremendous the steering wheel is not littered with a million buttons and the buttons that do exist are very clean now on to the negatives now despite what I said about the dash being more compact if you're a larger person that's where the current generation Mazda products suffer and the elbow room it's just feels more cramped if you're bigger for me I'm totally fine in here but the competitors definitely have an edge there the next part is the technology implementation despite all their safety stuff working pretty well the infotainment they've left the previous gen and they've left the previous generation screen in here when you look at the resolution of this it hasn't well the backup cameras are well the backup camera it looks like something I'd buy on eBay for twenty dollars that I would stick stick on the back that's Wireless the resolution is so bad and then other than that let's talk about the backseat space well it's great to be in the backseat not really these are very comfortable I mean they're to me they're more comfortable than my Bentley Vontae go that I have so when I'm cruisin with my friends and my Ferraris you know they're like hey let's take the cx-9 out I'm like really you want to take this like yeah we're really comfortable back here so that's what we're doing I me and my friends are out having a latte coffees iced coffees but let's talk about the materials it's got peasant bloggers okay that works it's got this huge center console area that they've added over the years it has a great armrest yes seat heaters and you have individual HVAC controls in the back now you get two little fans here and it feels great I feel like I could go cruising on the beach the seats do recline they recline pretty well and they recline really far forward so if I got a kink in my back I can kind of set the seats here and then I can improve my flexibility now with my 12 in this makes it a lot easier for me to use this now we can also slide forward and back so you know the the thing is the mechanical lover here the lever it's got a real positive click to it so you know when you're locked in place so if you're somebody that has like that phobia or security issue with the seat not being locked they got it got this nailed so that's one of the best in-class levers and seat designs that I've seen see the cx-9 the rear end let me tell you a little story Jack and I were in Irvine California to shoot our Mazda Miata documentary and we shot it with the CX 9 so this is by default the best vehicle ever because we made a masterpiece video of it like 15 videos about the Miata you can watch it you should go buy one today by a couple and then when you're at the dealership you should buy a cx-9 and I'll tell you why because you can have a family in the cx-9 is why you can fit a couple kids back here that's what you want isn't it don't you want to help the economy don't you want to go shopping that's what you do with the cx-9 let me show you I can fit a backpack back here I can fit my drone case this carpet pulls up the pile is really nice when you vacuum it you can put lines in it when this goes up don't worry you can store stuff down there dog treats or you can put your kids toys under there that's right so the biggest negative part about the cx-9 I'll just get to that before the shop pull this seat up it's the best SUV ever except for this it doesn't really fit anything in the back with the seats up my backpack has this much space before the hatch hits it so the compromise to have this third row really affects cargo volume and compared to the telluride palisade and new Highlander this really suffers and shows its age if I had to wish for one thing in a perfect SUV like this it's that they would fix some of this among other things well we'll get into the shop and talk about the rust we are underneath the cx-9 again not a lot has changed here since the last time we looked at what the Takumi's have been real busy the Takumi's have crafted a few things here Jack like the wheel package the wheel entire packages it's it's incredible it's I feel Gini tie with this you mean Jen by you tie that one yeah Jen by eight i stands for horse and rider as one it's about connecting the driver with this SKYACTIV architect it's just incredible mark what we suggest is you stop this video now go to your local dealership contact James Orton and Crystal Lake Mazda and buy 15 no not by 15 Jack buy the entire country's fleet have them bring in a hundred thousand of these which they probably haven't made a hundred thousand no the long story short is they haven't updated too much here since we talked about it last this is still based on the SKYACTIV platform correct which is shared between the cx30 the Mazda 3 the cx-5 and this this is the largest platform of them all they've extended it out change suspension around to make this the family hauler you may have always dreamed of or may not they've added G vectoring control that's the main thing which is their torque reduction system and they've got further into that with the cx30 with G vectoring Plus but essentially it can dial back the torque on the motor to get the car to turn in more natural there's a whole bunch of stuff behind it that you're never gonna understand which we talked about in great length on all their products they did but this is again on demand all-wheel drive system paired to a front-wheel drive setup you know always does feel front-wheel drive driven based it does so it's an on and off switch it detects slip in the front all the sensors work together to transfer our transfer power to the back when it needs it it's very competent for most drivers this is exactly what you want without wasting too much energy or fuel economy to have this it's very efficient but that's all you want to know I'm sure let's take this out on the road and see how it drives all right all the cx-9 the glory the turbocharged four-cylinder jack this is the signature mark ah pardon me ooh weena diesel sure feels like it all the torque is down low there's nothing happening up top it shifts at like 5,500 rpms but who cares about that you're buying a SUV of this type to live life in the slow lane smooth sailing cushy ride electronics so tell me about your experience with this cx-9 where a couple years removed from driving this so we've had this this is our third time you had the cx-9 for your original review for about a week then more recently when we did our Mazda documentary in Irvine Mazda was kind enough to lend us a cx-9 signature for a little over a week and now I've had this for a week okay I will tell you this Mazda's greatest strengths and biggest weakness is how insular the brand is meaning their products aren't designed necessarily to benchmark other cars they build things the way they want to and that's almost to a fault particularly when it comes to space and practicality so the problem with the Mazda 3 the cx-5 and this thing is when you compare it to other products in this segment it lacks a lot of the interior volume and when you ask Mazda they're like well if a car is too big you introduce clutter into your life and you're less happy and sure that may be correct I know Mazdas on all sorts of studies but the American buying market doesn't care I don't particularly disagree with you jack but what I don't like why is there torque steer in this and that's one of the things that I don't understand there are definitely compromises with this product and as we talked about earlier I think it's because this architecture has been stretched to its absolute limits yeah I think they've reached the end of the road for what they can do with and grant granted okay Mazda is a small automotive manufacturer they're the first ones to tell you they have to do a lot with a little and when you try to compete in a segment like this and I don't know that I would give this as hard of a time except with a price tag at $47,000 for this signature model it's it's far far far far too much money and pushing you in the price category of competitors that have surpassed them and this is an old this was one of the oldest Mazda products so in some ways I have to give them a little bit of slack in the fact that this isn't completely up to date and it's due for a refresh let's do four I would hope a pretty major refresh so when I drove the Mazda 6 the last time I said they've reached the limit of what they could do with that sedan it's like um it's like luxury car levels of refinement it has all this potential as great interior but it's still fighting the front-wheel drive feeling that it's built on and this is the same thing if you want to go upscale like this which is Mazdas whole goal now yes if you want to go up market you want to go luxury which this is teetering on this needs to be transformed into a rear-wheel drive architecture now there are a lot of good things about this some will argue the steering's too heavy I think it's a pleasant change from a lot of the other manufacturers in terms of handling and overall dynamics when you turn the wheel and go through turns and corners it does a great job the ride control and body control is really good on most pavement types the seats are super soft it absorbs a lot the subtle impacts or smaller impacts are great but when you get over rough stuff like this it doesn't do a good job isolating each corner of the car so if you hit a bump over there a harder bump there's this shock wave that gets sent through the whole car and it feels it doesn't feel very rigid and I don't know if it's just an extension of the way that they have the suspension to it or if this this platform is the bay I extended out so much that they can't control certain frequencies or vibrations in it but that's my only real negative about the ride quality really hard drunk jarring hits or potholes it doesn't do well everything else does as smooth as butter my thing about this car and like the cx-9 as a whole Mazda has the cx-9 competes in a segment where people care about two things they want minivan like space without having to buy a minivan and absolute rhyme quality mazda has sacrificed in both of those categories to build a car that drives a little bit better and whether or not you value that and you want a experience that doesn't make you so bored you want to drive an oncoming traffic is why you'd buy the cx-9 yeah I guess this is this is the toughest mazda product for me I mean it's definitely to me it's the worst one it's the worst one on all of them and all of them are you can't say that Mazda has a bad product and this is like if you want to go down the list this is the bottom this is the bottom one and it doesn't mean that it's bad it's just no longer competitive with like what everybody else is doing the telluride is a really good example the new Highlander is a really good example of two amazing three rows that do a better job at being a three row out of correct final thoughts on the Mazda cx-9 we've spent so much time in this vehicle and other Mazda products that we joke around a lot but as a viewer you want to know a few things one is it good and yes it's good there are some problems with it at its core that's because they are trying to adapt this architecture and platform to the American market and some of it doesn't translate well people want a big vehicle that's flashy as a retag feature and it has a ton of cargo capacity and rides like a sofa on wheels and other manufacturers have figured that out and the cx-9 is now behind and I would say on the cx-5 it's not that big of a deal on the Mazda 3 it's not that big of a deal but here it is those compromises in storage and interior capacity that every person I've talked to seems to harp on about this is very apparent now with newer products coming to market so that has to change unfortunately if that means they have to sacrifice some of the Mazda ness outs out of the cx-9 for the American market I think it better suits what they need to do the pros are this the interior is still great it feels well built the materials are good everything is super comfortable the seating surfaces it's just the attention of details there even though this is less generation infotainment unit it still works really well and I appreciate it more with the passage of time the physical controls are great and really most everything in terms of driving is good now the outside which I didn't talk about much there's some things that really bother me when you look at this more and you notice it more with the cx30 these huge chunks of plastic you don't know it's so much from the distance but when you get up close it looks so cheap and this stuck on chrome trim here and then in other places it looks like something out of a Chrysler product from like well probably last year yeah chrome I like chrome about everything I like plastique robot guys get underwear but there's little things and they don't add up to a whole lot but again if you you value comfort and insane cargo capacity the cx-9 is not gonna please you if you just need the third row and you want good driving dynamics and a pretty solid drivetrain I still really like the CX 9 so thanks for watching I'll see you next time you\n"