Mazda CX-80 (2024 - ) review

A proper seven-seat SUV for under £50k, with the top-of-the-range model sitting under £60k? Where do we sign? There are very few extra-large SUVs on sale with this amount of kit, for this price. The powertrains on offer give drivers more potential savings: the plug-in hybrid will be good for those who pay Benefit In Kind (BIK) tax on a company car because it has relatively low emissions and sits at 8 per cent BIK, and it benefits those with a home charger, who can keep the battery topped up at very low cost. The diesel, meanwhile, offers excellent fuel economy for those who face long annual mileages. Residual values for Mazdas are normally high, based on excellent build quality and the reliability inherent in the brand.

See above. You can’t beat Japanese engineering … unless you happen to be Kia or Hyundai, both of outperformed Mazda in the What Car? Reliability Survey 2024. Still, Mazda finished 16th out of 31 brands, which is good enough for consumer confidence and the Mazda network seems very welcoming and responsive to owner concerns. You get the bog-standard 60,000-mile warranty, which is a bit disappointing when faced with five years on the rivalling Hyundai and seven years on the Kia.

For reasons best known to itself, Mazda has installed permanent four-wheel drive in all versions of the CX-80. Impressive as it is we can't see many owners ever needing it to get out of muddy fields, over to ski resorts or up wet slipways, and the pay-off is more weight, more things to go wrong and an annoying central transmission tunnel carving up the car’s floor. But, it does give you extra traction and peace of mind. In terms of tech even the Exclusive-line base trim level gives you a parking camera and sensors front and rear, which is welcome, plus blind-spot monitoring (hurrah), emergency lane-keep assistance (ugh), lane-departure warning (ditto - turn it off), and traffic-sign recognition (meh). If you want adaptive cruise control (truly brilliant), you need Homura Plus.

The CX-80 is thankfully a proper seven-seater like the more expensive Volvo XC90 and not one of those '5+2' types with a couple of occasional seats in the boot for small children. However, you can feel the price difference between this and the Volvo given the doors shut with a tinny clack, and the whole car feels lacking in the weighty quality you get from the sound deadening and better materials in more expensive cars. Even the Sorento feels like a step up in quality. Storage space beneath the central front arm rest is meanwhile disappointingly shallow (no room for a drinks bottle which is really poor in such a massive car), presumably because of that stupid four-wheel drive. But third-row passengers get cup holders and properly supportive seats, and there’s still room in the boot for a few bags of shopping. If you want the panoramic glass roof (which you will), you’ve got to climb up to the Homura Plus level, which also gives you privacy glass. The top trim, Takumi, gives you a lovely pale leather and wood interior, although there are still some fussy design bits like the oddly stitched horizontal slash across the dash which rather spoil the elegance.

Mazda’s tech designers have made one very brilliant decision in keeping the big rotary button in the middle to control the central screen. This design works 10 times better than any touch-screen ever invented, given you can rest your hand by the knob, you don’t need to avert your gaze from the road for long and it is simple and easy. Big tick for not bowing to the pressure of the touch-screen brigade. The layout is very bog standard, though, and lacking the pretty colours or snazzy graphics of many car brands these days. But we'll take ease of use. We also like the standard heated steering wheel, smartphone connection and the climate controls and USB-C charging for rear passengers.

It was less the power delivery that disappointed us, more the lack of finesse with which it arrives. In electric mode the petrol plug-in hybrid makes an unusual whine, and it doesn’t set off with the runway smoothness associated with most electrically assisted cars. Many cheaper rivals manage to be silent and far smoother in battery mode, which is one of the benefits. The electric range, at a max 37 miles, feels almost pointless in a seven-seater as well. If you fill the car with people, you’ll be lucky to get 20 miles on electric driving out of it, which is low these days when some hybrids offer 60 miles on electricity. The diesel likewise seemed unnecessarily noisy, with too much vibration inside the car. Mazda normally engineers its cars to steer, corner, accelerate and brake like a dream, so the CX-80 is a little disappointing here. But the diesel is a six-cylinder 3.0-litre job with 250 horsepower, which is unusual in this anti-diesel age and welcome. 0-62mph in 8.4 seconds is a meaningful benefit, and you should get well into the 40s for miles per gallon.