2024 Mazda CX-80 Owner Review2024 Mazda CX-80 Azami owner review

Have you experienced any reliability issues with your vehicle since you purchased it?

No.

Have you had to make any warranty claims?

No.

Has your vehicle been serviced at least once since you took ownership?

Yes. The car had its one-year service at Stanmore Mazda. Absolutely zero complaints; service was timely and hassle-free.

As the first service, there really wasn’t much scope for disaster, but the car came back clean and on time, so I can’t ask for any more.

Overall, are you satisfied with your ownership experience so far?

Yes. Mazda are making a concerted push upmarket, and how successful you consider this to be entirely depends upon your experience of so-called luxury cars.

I have no issues with the car itself, and compared to its predecessor, a RAV4 Cruiser, it is a more accomplished interior presentation. Compared to established European marques, there is still some distance to travel on that front.

Craig’s experience with the 2024 Mazda CX-80 Azami

The car was a cynical novated lease purchase given the FBT benefits in place at the time, but the marketplace for PHEV seven-seat cars was very limited.

I have no issues with the car, but it simply feels a little undercooked. The rear suspension is entirely unresolved, being quite tautly sprung but insufficiently damped, meaning it is alarmingly easy to make it bounce.

The rear tailgate doesn’t open anywhere near high enough; the average Japanese man is 171cm/5’7”, and any higher than this and you’re going to bash your head on the tailgate.

The transmission detests being rushed, and it is not hard to elicit any number of whines, groans, and clunks from the engine / electric motor / gearbox setup. Perversely, the transmission is by far the most resolved in sport mode as this seems to be the only time all parts of the engine, gearbox and electric motor know what everyone’s job is.

Unfortunately, it also makes the accelerator response needlessly aggressive, and so departing the lights with sufficient velocity to eject a yoghurt pouch from the hands of a toddler gets old fairly quickly.

Options are therefore glacial getaways, so the various clutch packs have time to shuffle between ICE and BEV as required, or like you have an unhinged desire to beat everyone off the line despite driving a 2.3-tonne SUV.

Attempting something between these poles will at some stage generate an alarming crunching, grinding or whirring noise and the kind of transmission shunt you thought was the preserve of the steam locomotive era.

All this said, you cannot get a five-metre long, European seven-seat PHEV for anywhere close to $90k, so you truly get what you pay for, and as a tool for driving around two young beasts that like nothing more than squashing bananas into upholstery and emptying sand-filled shoes into window mechanisms, it serves its purpose well.

Despite whatever the official range is, the battery is good for about 44km in Sydney peak-hour traffic, and as a result, fuel usage stands at 2.3L/100km over the last 12,000 kilometres. This is undoubtedly a good thing as the NA 2.5-litre engine is somewhat agricultural, and given it runs an Atkinson cycle, more revs simply equate to more noise without the anticipated forward motion.

For context – this means in a year of motoring, the tank has been filled on four occasions and charging at home puts fuel costs for 12k at approximately $800. The running costs are pretty compelling relative to internal combustion alone.

Ludicrously, the poise and control the car offers a spirited driver is so far beyond what could reasonably be expected of a family bus, you have to wonder why Mazda bothered. It genuinely does provide good grip and feel, allowing the clipping of an apex far more readily than one would expect. However, I suspect 95 per cent of clientele would prefer a more compliant ride that didn’t turn speed bumps into launch pads for anything or anyone above the rear wheels.

Other minor gripes extend to the doors. I’ll not complain about their size, that is to be expected on a vehicle with a 3m wheelbase, however the hinges are palpably not strong enough to hold them open and given their immense surface area and weight, any kind of breeze will have it close on you as you reach in to fasten the rear-facing harness.

It’s all well and good opening to 90 degrees to make the most of the large aperture, but not at the cost of being assaulted by a self-closing door. The doors in closing also lack the requisite ‘thud’ that the Koreans have worked out lends such an air of perceived quality that was the preserve of German cars for so long.

The infotainment system has been the subject of an endless beat-up by professional reviews, but I just don’t understand why. The native menu system – accessed through a wheel – is easy to navigate. Ostensibly, the system is not touch screen for reasons of safety, but clearly it’s because it’s so old it’s not worth the cost of reverse engineering it rather than building new or embracing the CarPlay Ultra approach.

The magic for me is that the physical shortcut buttons tie in to CarPlay. Want to switch from Spotify to Google Maps? Click the nav button, and it takes you there. Back to music? Click the audio button. Using Google for navigation? The directions appear on the heads-up display.

Clearly the native satnav is useless – I’ve tried on three occasions to enter an address and each time given up, frustrated and unsuccessful, but I can’t help but feel Mazda know this and so meaningfully integrated CarPlay into the car's switchgear controls so you need never engage with the native product. Tellingly, the screen is touch-enabled using CarPlay, but you still have actual buttons you can use to navigate CarPlay without needing to take your eyes off the road.

On the subject of screens, I can only assume that the trend of replacing analogue dials with screens that do absolutely nothing more than… replicate analogue dials is actually a cost-saving for manufacturers. Perhaps right / left conversions are easier, or miles vs kilometres is now simply a line of code, or maybe presenting data electronically rather than physically is just easier and cheaper these days. Because why would you not make more of this?

Anyone who has used Audi’s virtual cockpit, where you can see a map showing your route and lane directions alongside typical speed / revs / gear / economy data and infotainment information all in one easy glance, will know just how much of a missed opportunity it is to watch a basic speedo on an LCD screen.

This may seem like a negative review, but it actually isn’t. I simply highlight the deficits where the CX-80 doesn’t hold a candle to the European prestige motors it would dearly like to imitate.

The car is comfortable, quiet and well-equipped. The facial recognition driver profile actually works and is helpful if you have two (or more) materially different drivers, which makes it easy to jump in the car and drive without having to think about seating position and mirrors.

The paint finish is excellent, and the construction and panel gaps are easily as good as a German car. The rear space is simply immense and incredibly useful when it comes to rear-facing car seats, but tall drivers.

I like the CX-80, but I don’t love it. My previous vehicle felt like it was made the same way NASA make the space shuttle; every component and system made by the cheapest tender and then bolted together, but as a result, being less than the sum of its parts, something that looked better on paper than it felt in real life. The Mazda is better than that, but in attempting to move upmarket whilst keeping the profit margin and sticker price intact, it falls between two stools.

It does not ephemerally ‘feel’ as special as a BMW/Audi/Mercedes/Volvo, but it is not as expensive as one either. Equally, it feels like a more premium product than a Toyota or a Nissan, but it is a feeling you need to pay more to experience. Mazda appears to be attempting to find a niche, but in the ever-more-stratified automotive world, it feels like it is threading a very small needle.

MORE: Explore the Mazda CX-80 showroom