2023 Mazda CX-50 In-Depth Review - The Best Mazda for Towing & Off-Roading? We Do Both to Find Out!

Hi folks and welcome to the Truck King YouTube channel. Off-road and outdoors focused packages for mid-size crossovers are becoming very popular. You have the RAV4 TRD Off-Road, the Wilderness lineup from Subaru, Trailsport from Honda, and now we have this. This is the brand new Mazda CX-50. They brought it out to be a more rugged version of the CX-5, but did they succeed? That's exactly what we're going to look at in this video. So we're going to take this crossover head off-road and then hook up a small travel trailer and I'll let you know how it does. Let's start with the walk around and we have to talk powertrain. So the base engine here in the CX-50 just like the CX-5 is a two and a half liter inline four-cylinder engine naturally aspirated. It's making 187 horsepower and 186 pound-feet of torque and it uses a six-speed automatic. Step up and you're going to get this. This is the Skyactiv-G Turbo and it is also a two and a half liter inline four-cylinder engine, but with premium fuel out of this power plant you can expect 256 horsepower, 320 pound-feet of torque, and that is also sent through the same six-speed automatic transmission and for the first time standard all-wheel drive which is here on the CX-50 and has also come to the CX-5. So every one of these models you're going to get will be all-wheel drive. I want to talk styling on the CX-50 because it is different than the CX-5. Instead of those smooth lines you're getting a little bit more of a rugged edge to this vehicle and now I can tell you this doesn't share the platform with the CX-5. Essentially what you're looking at is a stretched out CX-30 and what Mazda kept telling us is that they wanted an emphasis on long and low which you know the CX-5 is a little more tall and bubbly. This definitely is long and low and then to emphasize that kind of off-road character you do get those plastic fender flares there. This is the top of the line model so we have 20 inch wheels and overall I do think it's a sharp looking package, a little nicer looking than a CX-5, a little more serious. The CX-5 is a little more bubbly looking, but of course that's all super subjective so now please weigh in. What do you think of the styling here on the CX-50? I mentioned long and low well let me show you where all that length went to. It's all back here in the storage area so the CX-50 here is five inches longer than a CX-5 and that five inches is entirely in this storage floor right here. I'll put up the overall cubic feet but yeah just from a kind of a seat of the pants assessment this is a big storage area in the back of the CX-50 and is definitely better suited for somebody who is kayaking or camping or hiking rather than the rather small storage in the back of a CX-5. All right let's talk about the back seat now. I said that all of the extra length within the cargo area that's not totally true. The CX-50 has 0.2 inches more rear seat leg room than the CX-5 so sure it's negligible but let's see how I fit. All right well this is 39.8 inches of leg room just shy of 40 and you know what my knees are okay sadly my head is not. I stand at six foot two and I do not have quite enough headroom. There is no adjustability to the seat either back here which is becoming more common in these crossovers. The other thing is the CX-50 has Mazda's first panoramic sunroof in it which is a nice feature but it eats up some of your headroom. Without this I might be just about okay but like I said the leg room is actually not too bad here for me and then I'll also let you know I have a heated seat and some USB ports down there. So the back seat here is not why you would buy this vehicle over a CX-5. It's definitely more for what's going on with the storage and then the towing and off-road. And here's something totally different everybody. If you are a fan of the show Schitt's Creek well here is the Rosebud Motel. This is where they filmed all those exterior scenes right here in rural Ontario. Cool. Coming up we are going to go off-road and tow a travel trailer so make sure you stay tuned for that but right now let's just talk about driving empty. And there is no doubt that of all the brands out there Mazda puts the most emphasis on driving dynamics. They want every one of their vehicles from the MX-5 right up to CX-9 to be fun to drive. Although the CX-50 here has a bit of a different mission because it's also intended to go off-road. And you don't want super stiff good handling suspension when you go off-road because it's going to beat you up and that's what I'm feeling here. This vehicle has more body roll than a CX-5 and just overall softer suspension. So what that means is when you do hit that rough cottage road you're not going to get your teeth rattled out of your head. But what it also means is if you are looking for those peak driving dynamics if that's really what you care about how the crossover feels going around a corner well the CX-5 still does feel a little tighter and a little stiffer. So in the handling department I'll still give it to the CX-5 but again these two vehicles have you know different usage cases and they've been tuned to match those. Looking inside the CX-50 here it feels executive and luxury to me. I like the stitching across the dash. We really have this long kind of horizontal layout here and I do feel like it's premium. I do feel like this could compete with something more like a Lexus or an Acura rather than a Toyota or a Honda. Two other things that I want to point out on the interior that stand out to me. First of all head-up display. I love having that. Second of all there's actually no controls here for my entertainment or navigation up here on the dash. They're all down here by the shifter and I think ergonomically it makes a ton of sense. My hand naturally falls here anyways. Plus there's a tendency when things are on the dash that you want to look at them when you touch them. Whereas down here I never feel like I need to look down to see it. I just know where the knob is and I'm able to use it while I drive and keep my hands on the road. So yeah I believe that ergonomically here Mazda's got a really nice setup. Well folks we've talked about how it drives empty and the answer is nice. It's smooth and comfortable in here. Actually because they're not chasing that overall corner carving experience I feel like this is one of the most comfortable on-road Mazdas that you can buy. But you know what the reason they did this was to go off-road. So let's go hit that now and we'll see if the CX-50 is any good. Now folks it is time for some off-road driving. So I've got the CX-50 in off-road mode and here we go. What we're actually driving on here is an unmaintained county road here in Ontario. So somebody might have a little cabin or a cottage out on this little path and so the county puts it here but they don't maintain it like I just said. So they end up getting pretty rough and the other thing we have today is it's you know four or five degrees outside and yet there's still some snow on the ground so things are extra soft and under the snow is a bit of mud. So we will see how the Mazda does. So far we're just heading downhill. So I've put the CX-50 into off-road mode and that was such a big emphasis on this vehicle is the fact that it's a little more outdoorsy a little more ready to go off-road. So first of all we get off-road mode. Second of all 8.5 inches of ground clearance which isn't a ton but it is more than the seven and a half inches you get in the CX-5. So an extra inch out of this CX-50. Approach angle is still just 18 degrees so the the nose is pretty low. No one's going to call this an off-roader but on a snowy muddy wet road like this so far so good. Now when you go into off-road mode it's going to split the power to all four wheels constantly. So this is a front wheel drive based off-road system. Put it in off-road mode and it's going to keep that torque clutch or the clutch pack locked up to make sure the rears are always getting power. The other thing off-road mode is going to do is it's going to try to maximize traction. This is really typical in most vehicles but it will brake the wheel that is spinning to make sure you get traction to the other wheel. And what's interesting is Mazda actually and this makes sense they say that if the rear passenger is spinning then there's a good chance the front driver is going to be spinning because you have you know your weight on the other two tires. So not only will it break that wheel it will preemptively break the diagonal wheel to make sure you don't get any wheel slip which is also pretty cool. And I mean this is not a challenging course but so far so good. So I've just come to a full stop here on this hill and this is really interesting. Mazda says they have a bit of a hill start assist but it's not just the typical system which holds the brakes. What Mazda does is when it senses the hill it actually moves up to a high idle just above a thousand rpm. So when I lift the power's right there. That's an interesting take on a hill start assist rather than using the brake. Mazda always does things a little differently. So as I come to the end of this unmaintained road here I think one of the questions that strikes me because it did a nice job right there. This is the kind of road a rough country cottage road with some snow and mud where a vehicle like this yeah you're not going to worry about it. So with that in mind I think the next question is why? Why do we have all these mid-size off-road crossovers? Because this is not the first one. Mazda actually presented some data to us which I'm sure all the manufacturers have now which suggests that in the last two three years the entire outdoor segment has grown substantially. So hiking, kayaking, biking, anything where you want to go out and do something. Well we're all doing it more than ever. So the automotive industry is responding with these off-road packages. Now I do this because the real question with these packages is how much of it is just aesthetic and how much of it is actually functional. And here on the when you go for the CX-50 rather than the CX-5 there are some legitimate differences. I mentioned you get that extra ground clearance which for going off-roading is legitimate. Another big one in my books is the CX-50 here has a longer wheelbase and that is going to help with towing. Powertrain wise you're just about identical so not a big advantage there. However Mazda does say that the clutch pack the actual coupling in this CX-50 is almost 40% bigger than in its other all-wheel drive systems. That's going to allow it to take on more heat load and make sure that the power gets to all four wheels even in some really rough circumstances. So there are some legitimate differences that make the CX-50 here better at off-roading and better at towing. And speaking of towing Mazda has set up another little demonstration for us where I get to pull a trailer. So let's go do that now and we'll see how this little crossover feels. And now folks we enter the towing portion of our CX-50 drive and huge kudos to Mazda Canada. They brought out a small travel trailer for us to pull today. It is not fully loaded. Empty weight on the trailer is about 3,000 pounds but there are some propane tanks and a couple things in there so we're probably 32, 3300 pounds. We're getting close. This vehicle as it sits right here has a 3,500 pound max tow rating. Now to get the 3,500 pounds you have to get the turbo engine. The other CX-50s are only rated at 2,000 pounds so that is an important distinction. If you want the big towing number you got to get the big engine. It makes sense. What do I actually have in the CX-50 for towing? I do have a towing mode that is a first for Mazda and then maybe more importantly I have four extra inches of wheelbase over the CX-5. And one thing that Mazda just kept on saying with this vehicle is long and low, long and low. And you know what I'll shout out to my dad. I grew up with him always telling me the best towing vehicles are long and low. So using this setup to up your tow rating just made perfect sense. Now I'm cruising along here at highway speeds. What am I really feeling? Well there's a little bit of tail wagging the dog going on. It's not pushing me around but I can feel that trailer back there. There's a bit of that porpoising feeling going over bumps. The wheelbase helps to smooth that out but I can still feel it. It's not a particularly windy day either but I have just a little bit of sway. Now this CX-50 does have sway control and it will use the all-wheel drive system to help control that. The point there is it's controlling it well at highway speeds but it's not the vehicle where you're just going to forget it's back there like you can with some bigger trucks or SUVs. Now let's feel the power with the trailer on. I'm going from a dead stop foot to the floor. Not bad and there's 80 kilometers an hour. All right that wasn't too bad again considering this is basically a maximum load it jumped up to speed in a totally acceptable amount of time. There is one other system here at work while towing and it's GVC that is G-Force Vectoring Control. Now the idea behind GVC is right as you enter a corner as the vehicle feels the steering input it will actually back off of the throttle just for a second. The idea behind that is when you're accelerating you're actually transferring weight to your rear wheels and then when you're braking you're transferring it back to your forward wheels. Well with that little throttle blip you actually transfer the weight back to the front wheels so on initial turn in you get just a little bit more bite because you have that weight going forward. Now it works on an everyday Mazda pretty well although I gotta admit it's pretty hard to really feel what it's doing but here with a trailer on it actually accentuates the feeling because once you have tongue weight back there that is lifting weight off of your drive and steering wheels in the front. So with tow haul mode Mazda actually takes the GVC and they turn it up even more so when you enter into a corner it's going to help you get that initial bite. Now once again I'm not going to say it's like handling like a sports car with the trailer on the back but I will say that that thing back there is pretty much at max tongue weight for this vehicle or max towing weight and I don't feel like my front end is light. Going straight down the road I am just going straight and then going through a corner it doesn't feel unpredictable and it doesn't feel like I have to dial in you know more steering because there's less weight on those wheels. So again it is hard to really tell what is GVC and what isn't but that's my takeaway is that it's not feeling light out here on my steering wheels when I'm turning it. Overall I gotta say I'm fairly impressed it's doing the job well I'm not stressed out and like I said maybe the biggest takeaway is is how little I need to do in this steering wheel. I'm going up over bumps and divots and potholes and the entire rig just tracks nice and straight and that's definitely what you want out of your towing vehicle. Well folks we have arrived at the end of this video. When I'm evaluating these mid-size crossover off-road packages I'm always really trying to see what makes a legitimate difference and then what is just appearance what is just for aesthetics and here on the CX-50 I think it's got both. This thing looks better than the CX-5 in my opinion and then hey it's got more ground clearance and a better all-wheel drive system so it's better off-road. It's got longer wheelbase and tow haul mode so it's better with the trailer and then it just straight up has more cargo space so Mazda set out to make a more utilitarian CX-5 and with this CX-50 I think they've absolutely succeeded. Well folks those are my thoughts now of course I want to hear from you please go below now into the comments let me know what you think of this CX-50. 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