2023 Mazda CX-8 (inc. 0-100 & autonomous) 7 seat SUV review

G'day, I'm Paul. So, Mazda's SUV range at the moment is pretty confusing. You have SUVs that have become very expensive and those that are still kinda not that expensive, and this is one of those. It's called the CX-8, and this actually provides pretty good value for money if you're after a seven-seater but don't want to spend mega-dollars. This one here is the G25 GTSP, so that means petrol four-cylinder, and it also means that it's roughly mid-to-higher spec in the range. This is priced at just under $60,000, but if that's too expensive, the entire range kicks off closer to the $50,000 mark. This competes with things like the Skoda Kodiaq, the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace, all of those smaller seven-seaters that have occasional seven-seat usage as opposed to adults for that third row. Now, today we're going to do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes on the screen, or if you are on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below, and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon as well, so you can find out every single time we drive a very red car. So you've got eight colours to pick from, half of them are free, the other half will cost you $795, they're the premium ones. I actually really like the look of this car still, I think it is a very smart-looking vehicle, especially in this red. This red has stood the test of time, I reckon. Down the front here, you've got a big old grille there, which seems to be the way Mazda does things, a lot of piano black there around the grille. In fact, this is like a, I don't actually know what colour that is, but it is reflective and it looks quite nice. Big Mazda logo there, bit of piano black down this bottom section, and then an open section for cooling as well. Over here, you've got a set of full LED headlights with LED daytime running lights, I love that sort of ring design they have around there at the moment. Whip around to the side here, this is where you're going to find your 19-inch alloy wheels, a sort of straightforward designer, piano black finish, but it really blends in nicely with the bodywork, so you have that piano black around the wheel arches there and the sole red finish as well. 200mm ground clearance, but this is just front-wheel drive here in the petrol trim, so you're not going to be really doing any off-road driving with it. Up the top here, piano black on your wing mirror with an indicator built into there as well. You've got body-coloured door handles, and then black that continues all the way down the bottom there. Roof rails, sunroof, and then come around to the back with me, around the back you'll find full LED taillights, Skyactiv-G, which signifies this is the gasoline engine, and then CX-8 off to the side here, brake light just up here, and a shark fin aerial up the top. So, let me know what you reckon about the design, do you think this has aged well? Let me know down there. So we are inside the CX-8, this is what the key looks like, so you've got the Mazda logo, then you have the buttons on the side, you've got lock, unlock, boot, it's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket, you've got a push-button start just here. In terms of the presentation, this is a bit dreary, it's quite dark in here, but I actually quite like the way this looks, it does feel high-end and premium, then when you compare it to some of the other competitors in this price bracket, at this price point, this actually feels like you're getting a whole lot more value for money. A lot of piano black down here unfortunately, but outside of that you're getting soft-touch surfaces and all of these touch points are really nice and soft as well. How soft are they? OK, well we've got our durometer, we've tested the main surfaces inside this car, if you do want to see how this one compares to others that we've tested before, look at the link in the description below. Now, build quality, what is that like? So that all feels pretty nice and solid. Door slam test. Let's talk infotainment, so you have a 10.25 inch display, this has been supersized now, you also have a digital display ahead of the driver too. This is really high resolution, unfortunately it's not a touchscreen, you do have satellite navigation built into there, AM, FM, DAB, digital radio with a 10 speaker Bose branded sound system, it's a good sound system. You do have smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Apple CarPlay is wireless, so it's quite clever, you just push this down there to access that, and then you scroll through all these different menus, so it's a pretty sort of decent setup, nice and quick too, sort of impressive setup there. And this is what Android Auto looks like, so again, wireless, full screen integration there. So, yeah, really nice setup here, I quite like what they've done with this, it's just nicely integrated and everything just works exactly as it should. Let's talk safety, so you have autonomous emergency braking, which is the tech that stops the car if you don't, got an auto dimming rear vision mirror, you have radar cruise control with a lane centering function, which we'll test a little bit later on, you have a blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror just over there, recross traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors, and a reverse view camera. This is what it looks like, pop that into reverse, yeah, quality's not too bad, so I can clearly see what it says on the suitcase there, so not bad, and then you have the sonar here for front and rear. Now, horn sound, this is what it sounds like, moving on to practicality and we'll start off with our connectivity. So in the centre console here you've got two USB-C ports, also got a 12 volt outlet hidden under there. In terms of storing your phone, you've got a wireless phone charger down the front here, you can pop your phone kind of anywhere else you want. Coffee cup, let's see how that goes, very nice, even my little coffee cup fits in there without getting de-littered. Same story with the water bottle, fits in fine, you've got teeth in there to hold it into place. Water bottle fits inside the door for the little one, try the big one as well, fits inside the door too, excellent. Other storage, so you've got this centre console here that's sort of reasonably sized, there's a glove box down here as well that's reasonably sized too, and finally you have a sunglasses holder up the top. Now let's talk about comfort, so you have dual zone automatic climate control up the front here, you have heated seats, you've got electric seat adjustment for the driver and front passengers so you can go forwards and backwards, your backrest can go forwards and backwards, you can lift the front, you can lift the back, you also have lumbar adjustment there along with seat memory for the driver's side. These seats are super comfy too so you are all set for a long distance drive. Steering offers both tilt and reach adjustments and on our reach test, all of these controls are easy to reach while you're driving. So second row, what's it like? There's actually a lot of room back here, so knee room's great, toe room's excellent, headroom is really good as well. You have a third zone of climate control here with heated seats for the two outboard seats, air vents, mat pockets, you've got privacy blinds, also centre console here with two cup holders, got rubber teeth in there, plus this little lidded area that has two USB A outlets as well. Bottles go inside the door too. In terms of seating for the little ones, two ISOFIX points on the outboard seats but you've got four top tether points in total, two on the outboard seats and then two for the third row. These seats move forward because this is a three row SUV, gives you a little bit more room for your third row. You can slide that forward and recline them a little bit as well so really good spot to be seated. Now our window test, so it's auto up and down. Oh look at that, all the way down, very impressive. Now third row, the other cool thing is that this almost opens 90 degrees which means getting baby seats and babies in and out of here is going to be much easier. But getting into the third row is pretty straightforward, you push this, wait for that to collapse and then once it does you can pull it out of the way. Now this is a kid only zone but I'll show you what it looks like with an adult in there regardless. OK so pull this back, it is very cramped back here so yeah look, tow room is non existent, knee room is pretty non existent but do keep in mind you can pull the second row forward to give yourself a bit more room but it will compromise knee room for your second row passengers. You've got cup holders off to the side, USB A ports on either side so from that point of view it's pretty good but no air vents back here which is a little bit disappointing. What's your cargo space like? Well let's crack it open, you've got a powered tailgate, very slow powered tailgate. So here you have a little over 200 litres of space available which isn't too bad. Beneath here you have a little storage area plus a space saver spare tyre. I'll show you what it looks like with the bags in here. So laptop bag there, I'm curious to see if this will actually fit. It does but does it close? Let's find out, tuck that in otherwise I'll cut my laptop in half. Oh fantastic, that is awesome. So you can actually fit a medium sized suitcase plus a laptop in there which is good to see. Alrighty we'll take this out, you can then expand the space a little bit more by dropping this third row out of the way. Once that is out of the way you have just under 800 litres of cargo space available with some hooks off to the side, 12 volt outlet under there. You can expand it even further though if you do drop the second row, that expands the space to just under 1800 litres. OK so we have just hit the road in the CX-8. It is worth just pointing out quickly that if you go for a petrol variant, not only is it naturally aspirated but the petrol variants are also front wheel drive as well. So the only way you can get yourself into an all wheel drive is through a diesel. So just something worth keeping in mind. So this particular variant, the G25, uses a 2.5 litre naturally aspirated 4-cylinder petrol engine. It makes 140 kilowatts of power and 252 newton metres of torque. So not a huge amount and that's all mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission. How does all that feel behind the wheel? Let's give it a little punch here. Yeah look the transmission's actually nice and quick and sharp but yeah it just really doesn't have much torque. When it's screaming there, you don't really feel that push in the back. So I think if you are after some torque or perhaps you want to do some towing, because it is worth keeping in mind this has 1800 kilos of brake towing capacity. It is slightly higher with the diesels and you are limited anyway to down ball weight of 150 kilos. But if you do want to tow, I would go down the path of the diesel instead of the petrol. So what does that mean in terms of fuel economy? We are currently sitting on 10.1, so a little higher than that claim. But still not that bad when you consider the size of this thing. If you go down the path of something like a Kluger, like a V6 version of the Kluger just chewed through the gas. Even now the new turbocharged 4 is still a little bit thirsty when you consider the size. Obviously Kluger is a bit bigger but I think that's actually a pretty reasonable fuel economy. Now let's talk sine waves. We'll jack the speed up a little bit here to 130 k's an hour. Maximum speed limit in Australia and also the speed you might hit when you're overtaking. These sine waves give us a really good idea of what this is like in terms of body control. So here we go. I think it just left the ground there. It is very floaty. Yeah they've dialled a lot of softness into the ride and as a result of that when you hit those sine waves it just lingers right up the top there. That's going to be amplified with the more passengers you have inside the car as well. So keep that in mind. That is something just to take note of. It means that in and around the city the ride is actually really nice. So if you hit potholes, speed humps, that kind of thing it's actually really good. But when you are touring in the country and you do hit those consecutive sine waves it is going to buck about a little bit. Rough road time. So with a soft ride I think this actually should be pretty good. So we do this at 90 k's an hour. It's a shocker of a road. Yeah look at this already. In the early stages of these corrugations it's actually getting along really smoothly. Here comes our condensed sine wave. It's going to shake the crap out of the car. Yeah it's not too bad. It's not overly skittish on that. So yeah look I think one of those side benefits of having that softer ride is that if you do hit this type of road or you drive in the country often it is going to feel nice and comfortable but still quite composed. Now let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the front of the car there. The wing mirrors are big but it's kind of like a narrow division there. So it could be a little bit wider potentially but it does have a blind spot monitor built into there. Visibility out the back is okay. It's a narrow envelope but the top of the seats don't really get in the way of things and then you have the front rear parking sensors, cameras and all that sort of fun stuff. Now you do have paddle shifters here on the steering wheel to row through the gears manually and in addition to that you also have a sport mode. So you flick that up to go into sport mode. Let's go for a little punt around the track here on a faster drive and see what it's like. Obviously you're not going to be doing this every day of the week but I'll test all the cars back to back in the same way to see how they perform. A lot of body roll there. Yeah it stacks a body roll and as a result of that you get that inside wheel flaring up when you get on the throttle. But it is actually pretty manageable. You can be quite confident with the throttle and you know exactly what the car is going to do and that body roll just makes it even more predictable when you are sort of moving around. It's actually surprisingly sort of nimble and agile despite its size. Brake pedal feel isn't great. It sort of feels a little bit wooden there. Let's see what it's like on this faster section up the back. Tip it in through here. It's actually pretty good. That sport mode's great. So it holds gears and it's more eager to drop down through the gears as well. So yeah look I mean it's no sports car but it is surprising how much fun you can have with it within its limits. Now let's talk about road noise. It is actually pretty quiet in here. I'm quite impressed with that. It's very windy today as well and there's not a huge amount of wind noise. So I think they've done a good job in terms of insulating the tyre noise because that used to be an issue with a lot of Mazdas. Okay time to test the semi-autonomous systems here. So we use the three outer lanes at the proving ground and the whole concept is as we get to the outer banking it actually needs to apply more torque to the steering to keep it within the lane and it kind of simulates what you can expect out in real world conditions. So let's set that cruise control to 70 k's an hour and we'll wait for our steering to engage. That indicates that the car is sort of taking care of it all. Okay that is active. You can see the green steering there. So we'll see how it goes here in the first lane. That's doing a decent job. It's staying fairly centre in the lane. We'll jump over to the next lane. Okay wait for that steering to go green. There it is. It's pretty much riding the line there. Yeah I'd be pretty concerned if I was next to other... Yeah we're riding line and it's just gone over the line. I'd be concerned if we're close to other traffic as well. I think that's probably a little close for comfort. We will try the outer lane anyway just to see what that's like. That's steering to go green. There it is. Lightly let go of that wheel. No that's just totally failed. So yeah look it's a pass in lane one and like a kind of pass in lane two but definitely a fail in lane three. So I think that system probably needs just a little bit of work. Performance testing time before we get into that. I just wanted to remind you about Help Me Car Expert. We take our inspiration from our friends at CarWow. If you do want to get connected to a dealer we have a network of vetted dealers that will help you get the best deal on a car and cars like this are in stock today which is great. Just google Help Me Car Expert it'll take you to landing page on our site and give you all the details on our company and how we do it and all that sort of fun stuff. So now you can tell it is quite drizzly here so this probably isn't going to be all that fun but we'll see how we go. I'm going to pop this into sport mode. I'll turn traction control off just so we can get a bit of slip off the line and I guess we'll see what happens. We'll go all the way through to 120 k's an hour as well. So here we go. Little bit of wheels slip off the line but not too bad. Alrighty so 60, 70, 80, 100 and there's 120. Took a little while to get there. Actually it took quite a long time to get there because I'm on the access road. Okay so let's have a little look here. 9.93 seconds to 100 and 80 to 120, 6.66. So pretty slow and that is just with one person in the car so you can imagine if you loaded this up take quite some time to overtake and do that kind of thing. So yeah not amazing. Let's go back for a break from 100 k's an hour. Okay dial up 100 k's an hour hopefully. Okay and there's our marker. That away. Took a little while to stop there and look to be honest it is pretty damp out there so this is going to be very much a wet result. Yeah 3.62 seconds and 50.57 meters. That is a really really long stopping distance. Yeah that's quite surprising. Even some of the bigger SUVs in the wet really don't take that long to stop. So I might give that one more crack just to make sure there wasn't anything funny going on there but let's just see what happens when we do it one more time. Okay let's have another crack at this. There's 100. Okay I can see my tire marks there. That was definitely better. So let's have a little look at that. Could have just been an anomaly there. It's 3.3 seconds 47.3 meters. So definitely better but still not amazing. So I will sort of put that down to the fact that it is a little bit damp out there at the moment so it's just something worth keeping in mind. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, we're building up that database. There is a link in the description below. And also if you want to see the app that we're using for this testing, I'll leave a pinned comment down below as well. Okay it's your favourite performance test. How fast will it go in reverse? Here we go. Turn off traction control as well just to see if it helps. All right 36 kilometers an hour. So Mazda CX-8, what do we reckon? Look I think that everything is great. It is just let down by the engine. It just doesn't have the punch that you want. And certainly if you are loading it up with people, it is going to feel positively slow as you try and overtake and stuff like that. So I think that is worth keeping in mind. It is worth considering the diesel if you do need that extra punch. If you're just driving in and around the city it's fine. It is the only Achilles heel of what is otherwise a pretty impressive machine. So let me know in the comments section below, what do you reckon about the CX-8? Have you bought one? What has it been like? I'm keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.