Comfortable and droll: the Mazda CX-9

Approaching certain intersections back in August, the vehicle I was reviewing lowered the volume of my music (or “So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish,” a droll story in audiobook format by the late lamented Douglas Adams) and in its place emitted a series of beeps.

Clearly the noise had to come from the audio head unit/navigation system/dashboard computing device in the vehicle, so I toggled through the different choices the touchscreen had to offer when the beeps intruded on my chosen entertainment.

The culprit: the TomTom navigation system alerts the driver each time the vehicle approaches a red light camera. I’m not kidding.(For the record, Adams would have had a field day with this.)

For the uninitiated, Toronto has affixed these scenery-enhancing grey industrial boxes on top of scenery-enhancing grey industrial poles planted into grey sidewalks at select intersections. They’re meant to record activity at intersections known for red-light running, speeding, collisions and all manner of automotive malfeasance.

These cameras show up on the vehicle’s screen along with filling stations and other useful waypoints. The difference? The cameras trigger beeping too. Maybe I’m new to this game, but seeing red-light camera locations on a navigation device is new to me.

That’s annoying, I thought, until I figured out what the beeping was for. You might think it’s almost as annoying as waiting this long for the first mention of a vehicle in a review of said vehicle. In any case, the thought of annoyance was out of step with the majority of the time I spent driving Mazda’s 2015 CX-9.

First impressions

Comfort. That’s the thought that stayed with me the first day I drove the CX-9, a day free of red light cameras.

I put more than 100 km on the 2015 Mazda CX-9 the first day I had it, and the one word that kept coming to me was “comfort.” Rain started, and the windshield wipers made quick work of it without my touching a switch. The rain intensified, and the wipers kept pace all by themselves. The sky darkened, and the lights turned themselves on. The CX-9 seemed intent on taking care of us. It felt good.

My tester, a CX-9 GT AWD in Titanium Flash Mica, sports a front end that hews to Mazda’s Kodo design language. Kodo makes the entire Mazda fleet recognizable from the front. It also makes Mazda’s clever website headline “The 7-Seater Raised By A Pack of Sports Cars” a defendable proposition.

The sheer size of this, the largest vehicle in Mazda’s current lineup, makes it difficult to get the same sporty effect towards the rear that you’d note in a Mazda3 or CX-3. The rear window does slope down at a rakish angle, and the roof curves down as it approaches the rear window.

Interior

Back to talking about comfort. On my first day with the CX-9, my dad and I drove for close to an hour each way to a Parapan Am track cycling event. The CX-9’s fantastic seats never rubbed us the wrong way, even when trudging through rain-induced stop-and-go traffic.

Front-seat passengers sit enveloped by the doors to the outside and, from back to front:

• a high centre storage bin with a padded lid elbows naturally gravitate to
• a covered set of cup holders
• the gearshift, with its leather-wrapped shift knob

By now, you’ve probably surmised the cabin sports a leather-wrapped steering wheel and heated seats. Leather, wood and metal accents completed the CX-9’s luxury look.

I could have played with the controls on the eight-way power adjustable seat, but it was perfect when I got in so I left well enough alone. If you share this vehicle regularly, Mazda provides three “memory” settings to adjust the seat for any of three different drivers at the push of a button. The CX-9 also recognizes your individual key fob (keyless entry is standard) and adjusts the driver’s seat to your preference.

Second-row seats were tall enough for me. Second-row passengers will appreciate climate controls mounted on the rear of the centre storage bin. They’ll also like the ability to recline the backrest, though if they do, any passengers behind them might have flashbacks of time spent on commercial flights in economy class.

The third row

The third row proved pretty tight. There’s little headroom for my 6’5” frame owing to the aforementioned downward-sloping roof. My six-foot-tall nephew took the rear bench on a short trip, and from what I could see in the rear view mirror, he was able to sit straight.

Third-row ingress and egress proved a little tricky for both he and I. I chalk part of that difficulty up to the perennial fear tall people carry around with them of clanging their heads against things that have no right to be placed so low.

A third-row suggestion: The Chevrolet Traverse, a vehicle I drove in my capacity as a volunteer at the 2015 Pan Am Games, offers second rows that can be either:

• a bench
• two separate seats

Games organizers provided two Traverses to Team Aruba (I drove members of their delegation while they were in town). These Traverses both had two separate seats in the second row. Rear-bench passengers chose to manoeuvre between these seats to get to the bench, instead of folding the second-row seats down. It seemed easier than stepping (and potentially stumbling) over folded second-row seats to get in and out. This unspoken preference went both for six-footers (a BMX competitor) and athletes and coaches of lesser stature. Back-row ease of access might justify the loss of a middle seat in the CX-9 too.

Cargo capacity

Given it’s the largest vehicle in Mazda’s lineup, the CX-9 is the choice for anybody who wants the most cargo room a Mazda can provide.

If only form followed function. The sloped back end enhances the CX-9’s looks. It’s in keeping with Mazda’s attractive Kodo design language. Unfortunately, while the back end behind the third row of seating seemed (just) wide enough to accommodate my hockey bag, the hatch floated gently up each time I tried to make it close itself using the button on the underside of the door. The bag was just a tad too wide. I resorted to folding down the “40” section in the 60-40 split folding third row of seats to make room for my gear.

Mazda offers an optional privacy cover for the cargo area.

Need to haul lots of gear?

• The second- and third-row seats fold flat, offering tons of cargo room.
• Roof rack attachments come standard.
• A towing prep package, rated for 1,588 kg (3,500 lb), is standard on all models. Included on my tester were a heavy-duty transmission cooler and radiator fan as well as a revised engine control module. A towing receiver hitch accessory must be purchased separately.

Electronics

Mazda offers a 5.8-inch display standard on both CX-9 trim levels. It does all the things you would expect (and some things I didn’t expect): phone connections, standard replies for text messages, music playback, navigation, rear-view camera and so forth.

While the Tom Tom navigation system offered surprise red-light camera alerts, it wasn’t up to the task of finding the velodrome. That was a forgiveable (foreseeable?) shortcoming. The address of the velodrome was so new it hadn’t yet made its way to every mapping system I tried. Pan Am/Parapan Am Games organizers erected signs on the roads that led us where we needed to go, so we didn’t need the system.

The 10-speaker Bose system in my CX-9 GT was up to the task of blasting my iPod collection for a ride or two, but I settled back into my audiobook for much of my week with the CX-9.

As usual, you need to choose the audio app on your mobile device for the vehicle to play what you want. You can’t choose it using the touch screen. (Using something that looks like an iPod Touch can earn you a fine and demerit points in the province of Ontario, hence my pointing this out.)

To clarify: I couldn’t switch between:

• music (a standard app on my iPod)
• the podcast app (another standard app on the iPod)
• the Douglas Adams audiobook on the third-party Overdrive app

even though all these apps all live on my iPod Touch.

In fairness, this isn’t just a Mazda shortcoming. (I mention this gripe in most vehicle reviews I write.) The mobile device operating system manufacturers need to work with both third-party developers and the automakers to make approved mobile apps accessible in the vehicle without requiring further setup. I look forward to the day when I can switch between apps that play audio using the in-dash touchscreen.

First World problem: There’s only one USB port available to front seat occupants. (I didn’t look around the rest of the vehicle for other ports.)

Driving

The civilized nature of this SUV really showed during that highway drive to the Parapan Am Games track cycling event in Milton. The vehicle drove smoothly whether cruising to the event or engaged in stop-and-go traffic back to Toronto.

I started paying more attention to bumps. I knew the CX-9’s tires hit bumps. We rolled over inevitable expansion joints on bridges, for instance. After a while, I deliberately aimed the tires at manhole covers and the fraying pavement that often surrounds them. The CX-9 shrugged all this off with a limousine-like ride.

Hit the accelerator and you rev Mazda’s MZR 3.7-liter V-6. Peak power of 273 horsepower happens at 6,250 rpm. The torque curve keeps 250 lb-ft at 3,000 to 6,000 rpm and peaks at 270 lb-ft at 4,250 rpm. My all-wheel drive model featured active torque split.

The six-speed Sport AT automatic transmission offers a manual mode as standard equipment.

Aside: while it looks a lot nicer, the layout of the CX-9’s shifter is identical to that in my girlfriend’s 10-year-old Mazda3. For that matter, the automatic transmission indicator (P-R-N-D-M) and the gear indicator screen (just below the auto transmission indicator) in the dash are also the same. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Mazda boasts this transmission provides both “enthusiastic launching” and “quiet cruising speeds.” I can vouch for both being true.

Brakes provided gentle yet no-nonsense stops. A yellow light sprang up on me as I closed in on an intersection soon after passing through a rainstorm, so I obligingly stopped. Trickles of water ran down the windshield. The automatic wipers flashed by once, then stopped.

Safety

The CX-9 brings an extensive suite of active and passive safety systems.

My favorite: Mazda’s lane change warning system. Mazda calls it “Blind Spot Monitoring with Rear Cross Traffic Alert.” If a car pulls up beside you on the road while you’re driving, an orange graphic lights up on the side mirror on that side of the vehicle. Should you signal to move into that lane, the CX-9 beeps to tell you that isn’t a good idea just now.

The system also detects pillars that flank a parking spot and beeps incessantly as you back out of said spot until you clear said pillars.

Back-up radar in this system got me in the habit of playing this fun little game:

• back up in a parking spot until the CX-9 starts repeatedly beeping
• back up some more until it beeps more urgently
• go a little farther until the beeping goes off the charts
• put the CX-9 in park and let it sigh in relief

Fuel economy

Transport Canada says the GS and GT models with the AWD system achieve 14.3 L/100 km in the city, and 10.6 L/100 km on the highway. The FWD GS model is rated by Transport Canada at 14.2 litres per 100 kilometres in the city, and 10.0 on the highway.

Pricing

My tester, the GT model, has an MSRP of $45,995. Adding freight and PDE bumps that up to $47,890. The base GS (first of three trim levels) starts at $33,995.

Conclusion

I couldn’t help but think about the CX-9 from the Douglas Adams point of view. He of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” could have taken inspiration for the various spaceships in his books from just about any modern vehicle, but he’d be doing so in great comfort and amusement in the CX-9.

I would have loved to get his “spaceship” interpretation of the red light camera alerts. Maybe there are 42 of them in the universe.

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A little something extra – here’s the gold medal tandem cycling Parapan Am race.