√2023 Mazda CX-90 review: Quick drive

Australia, meet the largest, most expensive and most luxurious Mazda SUV ever sold here: the Mazda CX-90.

Mazda has a new flagship model, and it’s a huge family hauler with a luxurious interior, lofty price tag and legitimate performance chops.

The 2023 Mazda CX-90 is set to arrive in Australian showrooms in a matter of months, replacing the outgoing CX-9 large SUV and serving as the big, luxurious pinnacle of the brand’s local SUV range.

Pricing for the CX-90 starts at just over $74,000 before on-road costs and tops out at almost $100,000 before on-road costs, making it the second-most expensive Mazda ever sold in Australia, behind the 1995 RX-7 SP sports car.

In advance of a full local launch, I was given the opportunity to drive a US-spec, pre-production, left-hand-drive CX-90 on a closed test track.

With a thorough stickybeak and some fairly intense dynamic testing, I was able to get a sense of what we can expect from this performance-focussed large SUV when it lands Down Under.

Here’s what you need to know.

Key details	2023 Mazda CX-90 Azami petrol
Price (MSRP)	$95,185 plus on-road costs
Colour of test car	Artisan Red Metallic
Options	Premium paint – $995 SP package – $5000 – Second-row individual seats (captain’s chairs) with ventilation – Second-row centre console with USB ports and storage – Tan nappa leather seat upholstery – Suede dashboard upholstery – Two-tone steering wheel upholstery – White maple wood centre console and door trim inserts
Price as tested	$101,180 plus on-road costs
Drive-away price	$113,731 (Melbourne)
Rivals	Volvo XC90 \| Jeep Grand Cherokee L \| Nissan Pathfinder

Mazda CX-90: Price and specification

In Australia, the Mazda CX-90 will be available in a choice of three model grades: Touring, GT and Azami.

Pricing starts at $74,385 before on-road costs for the petrol Touring grade, rising up to $95,185 before on-road costs for the petrol Azami grade. For a more in-depth breakdown of the range’s pricing structure, head here.

From launch, you’ll have the choice of two engines across all model grades in the CX-90.

The first is a 3.3-litre, six-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine outputting 254kW and 500Nm.

The second is a 3.3-litre six-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine outputting 187kW and 550Nm.

Both engines are combined with an eight-speed automatic transmission with rear-biased full-time all-wheel drive.

Both powertrains use a 48-volt mild hybrid system to give the engine a boost at low speeds and improve fuel efficiency.

A plug-in hybrid powertrain is also available in the CX-90, but a local Mazda representative said this powertrain is still “under consideration” for an Australian launch.

There are two option packages available and both are only offered in the top-spec Azami grade. Each of them costs $5000 and sees the second row of seating replaced with captain’s seats.

The Takumi package adds white nappa leather seat trim, a cloth dashboard panel, white maple wood inserts in the doors and centre console, second-row captain’s seats with heating and ventilation, and a second-row centre console with storage.

The SP package adds tan nappa leather seat trim, a suede dashboard panel, a two-tone steering wheel, heated and ventilated second-row captain’s seats, and a second-row centre console with storage.

Thanks to its somewhat lofty pricing, the Mazda CX-90 straddles two competitor segments.

It is more expensive, more performance-focussed and a little more fancy than the outgoing CX-9’s former rivals, like the Kia Sorento, Hyundai Palisade, Nissan Pathfinder or Toyota Kluger.

As a result, the CX-90 feels more aligned with large SUV offerings from semi-premium, semi-approachable brands, like the Volvo XC90, Lexus RX, Jeep Grand Cherokee L or Volkswagen Touareg.

The pre-production test car I drove for this review was the top-spec Azami grade with turbocharged petrol engine, finished in the new premium paint shade of Artisan Red Metallic ($995) and fitted with the optional SP package ($5000).

Key details	2023 Mazda CX-90 Azami petrol
Seats	Seven (or six, when fitted with the optional captain’s seats)
Boot volume	608L to third row 1163L to second row 2025L to first row
Length	5120mm
Width	1994mm
Height	1745mm
Wheelbase	3120mm

Mazda CX-90: Interior

I had high hopes for the CX-90’s interior – possibly unfairly so – based on its elevated price tag.

While undoubtedly comfortable and sophisticated in its execution, the CX-90’s interior is better described as exuding understated elegance rather than all-out luxury.

Previous Mazda shoppers will likely find it familiar, and the standout details in my test car were predominantly part of the $5000 optional SP package.

Happily, all CX-90 grades get leather seats, but the Azami gets nappa leather. In my test car the seats and steering wheel felt buttery soft, and the SP package meant they were an appealing shade of tan. They offered electric adjustment, heating and ventilation.

Also part of this optional package are suede dashboard and door inserts that feel lovely but could fall victim to dirty fingerprints or general wear and tear.

The two-tone steering wheel is a nice design touch and distinguishes the design from other Mazda SUVs I’ve driven – but again, it’s an optional extra.

A panoramic sunroof is standard on the GT and Azami grades and, while it brightens up the cabin, I’ve certainly seen more expansive examples on premium rivals. It also only opens halfway.

The centre console houses a wireless smartphone charger, a lidded compartment with two cupholders, a centre console storage box with butterfly-opening lid and two USB-C ports inside, plus there’s a glove box and sizable door bins.

The three-zone climate-control system, seat heating and ventilation, and steering wheel heating are all managed out of a long row of buttons below the infotainment screen.

All CX-90 model grades are fitted with three seating rows – either in a seven-seat layout as standard or an optional six-seat configuration featuring captain’s seats in the second row.

While I love the luxury feel of the captain’s seats, the inclusion of a centre console seems like a wasted opportunity to provide easy access to the third row, as there’s no easy walk-through passage available.

The centre console between the captain’s seats mostly adds storage – it houses a large storage bin and two cupholders – but otherwise doesn’t add much extra luxury (I was hoping for powered seat controls, massage seats, perhaps, or mini TV screens).

However, getting into the middle row is easy thanks to the aperture of the rear doors, which open to almost 90 degrees (a capability now appearing more regularly on family SUVs, like the Nissan X-Trail).

Middle-row occupants are afforded plenty of room with the tilt and slide bench pushed as far back as it will go, but might have to sacrifice some of this legroom should the bench need to slide forward to accommodate third-row occupants.

As standard, all grades also feature in-built sun blinds on the rear windows. Second-row occupants also receive their own row of climate controls, with seat heating and ventilation when the captain’s seats are fitted, otherwise rear seat heating only is fitted to the GT and Azami grades.

Family shoppers will also be happy to hear the Mazda CX-90 offers three ISOFIX-compatible seats no matter the seating configuration – the two outboard, middle-row seats, and then one seat in the third row. This is an improvement on the Mazda CX-9, which only offered two ISOFIX-compatible seats.

Top-tether attachments are also available over the back of all the rear seats.

The third row isn’t particularly hellish (and ‘hellish’ unfortunately tends to be my benchmark for third-row seating) – I even had roughly 1cm of headroom to spare and I’m 178cm tall.

Knee, leg and toe room can be further improved if middle-row occupants are willing to slide forward ever so slightly.

There are two cupholders for each third-row occupant, large side windows that let in plenty of light, and two USB-C ports.

There are third-row air vents too – although they’re located at knee level, so you’ll have to fiddle with the vents to get maximum airflow to your upper half.

Mazda CX-90: Boot size

According to Mazda, the CX-90 offers even more boot space than the outgoing CX-9.

The brand quotes a whopping 608L of storage with all three rows in place, if you include the underfloor storage. That’s a substantial improvement on the 230L available in the CX-9.

This expands to 1163L with the third row folded (up from 810L in the CX-9), and 2025L with the second and third rows stowed.

Certainly, with all three rows in play there’s roughly the same amount of boot space as a small-to-medium SUV. Once you fold that third row, it becomes comically large.

There’s a light and a 12-volt outlet, and the power tailgate offers hands-free access on all grades.

Under the boot floor, there’s a plastic cover with small storage compartments, and under that there’s a temporary spare wheel.

The third row can be seamlessly folded from the boot using pull tabs on the backs of the seats, which automatically flip the headrests down in a single manoeuvre.

Key details	2023 Mazda CX-90 Azami petrol
Engine	3.3-litre, six-cylinder turbo petrol mild hybrid
Power	254kW @ 5000–6000rpm
Torque	500Nm @ 2000–4500rpm
Drive type	All-wheel drive
Transmission	Eight-speed multi-clutch automatic
Power to weight ratio	114.4kW/t
Weight (kerb)	2220kg

Mazda CX-90: Infotainment

The base Touring CX-90 grade gets a 10.25-inch touchscreen, while the GT and Azami grades get a 12.3-inch touchscreen.

The CX-90’s infotainment system offers wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, native satellite navigation and DAB digital radio.

On the base Touring grade, music plays through an eight-speaker sound system, while the GT and Azami grades get premium 12-speaker Bose sound systems.

On my test car, the larger screen gave an overall polished appearance, positioned elegantly upright from the dashboard and paired with a 12.3-inch fully digital instrument panel display (standard on GT and Azami).

The system offers clean, familiar Mazda graphics and straightforward menu options, but I personally had one major gripe with functionality.

Mazda is persisting with a rotary dial controller down by the gearstick for managing its native infotainment menus, and the display can only be used as a touchscreen when you’re using CarPlay or Android Auto.

If you’re a touchscreen devotee like me, this switching between functionalities feels a bit counterintuitive and unnecessary.

A new Mazda party trick added to the CX-90 is something called the ‘Driver Personalisation System’. This allows drivers to enter their height into the infotainment system, allowing Mazda’s facial recognition technology to adjust the car’s settings to your ideal driving position.

It will also recover your settings upon entry if they are changed by a guest driver, as well as storing your personal audio and climate-control settings.

Mazda CX-90: Safety

The Mazda CX-90 is yet to be tested by Australian safety assessor ANCAP, so more specific details of its safety performance will have to wait until it receives a star rating.

However, as standard all CX-90 grades feature front and rear parking sensors, blind-spot monitoring, a vehicle exit warning, autonomous emergency braking with junction assist and pedestrian and cyclist detection, emergency lane keeping and adaptive LED headlights.

Helpfully, all grades also get a detailed 360-degree-view monitor, but the top-spec Azami grade adds a see-through functionality that shows a tighter view of obstacles near the wheels and offers a wider field of vision.

Importantly, the CX-90’s curtain airbags provide coverage for all three rows of seating.

Mazda CX-90: Driving

The Mazda CX-90 feels like a big, solid car – in all the best ways.

Rather than feeling cumbersome on the road, the CX-90 feels secure and substantial – providing a sense of confidence for anyone behind the wheel. Hauling around all that car could be a problem if the CX-90 wasn’t so bloody good at managing its own weight.

Sure, this is a big, three-row SUV, but it’s equipped with the kind of engineering you’d typically find in a sports car – and you sense it immediately.

In slalom testing, I was impressed with the CX-90’s composure under pressure, remaining remarkably balanced through corners and never unwieldy. This could be partially attributed to something called Kinematic Posture Control, a technology that also features on the MX-5 sports car.

KPC applies brake pressure to the inside rear wheel during cornering, which allows for sharper turns, better stability and reduces that body roll sensation you’ll often feel when taking corners in large SUVs.

Additionally, Mazda’s decision to opt for a longitudinal engine layout has clearly improved weight distribution in the car and contributed to this overwhelming sense of balance and composure.

Even the inclusion of rear-biased all-wheel-drive – a system typically found on expensive performance cars and more expensive prestige SUV rivals – proves Mazda refuses to compromise on performance in the name of practicality. Rather, it’s a valiant attempt to make them co-exist.

There’s a satisfying amount of weight to the steering and it feels thoroughly sporty, providing a surprising level of precision and requiring minimal input to nose around sharp bends.

During Mazda’s private facility preview, I drove at speeds of up to 140km/h around some fairly sharp bends that would typically make me nervous, but I was reassured by the accuracy and response of the CX-90’s steering.

The petrol engine in my test car holds the title of being “the most powerful mass-production power unit Mazda has developed to-date”, and it certainly feels as though it knows no limits.

Moving up over normal freeway speeds it just kept going, with seemingly endless power and torque in reserve.

There’s power aplenty, but it feels like it’s delivered sleekly and in moderation through the eight-speed transmission, rather than in short, sharp sporty bursts.

This can be changed by flicking it into sport mode, which quite dramatically sharpens the throttle response and sees the car hold gears for longer. It might even briefly trick you into thinking you’re in an oversized MX-5.

Visibility isn’t as clear-cut as in other large SUVs, but I will admit my normal field of vision might have been compromised by the left-hand-drive configuration.

Still, the glasshouse doesn’t feel particularly expansive, and the headrests on the third row reduce the rear field of vision to a neat little square between rear passengers.

I also didn’t feel like the driver’s seat is positioned particularly high off the road, nor is the ride overly cushiony or wafty.

The trade-off for this is that I felt more grounded and connected to the road, and the cabin of the CX-90 isn’t thrown off balance by the bigger hits.

The exhaust note from the 3.3-litre, six-cylinder turbo petrol engine is satisfying, if not particularly aggressive, and the cabin is otherwise well-insulated from road noise.

I did occasionally hear some sound effects when the CX-90’s 2220kg kerb weight plonked itself over harder edges at speed, and was more aware of wind noise at freeway speeds.

I also had the rare opportunity to briefly do some dynamic testing with the car’s active cruise control, lane-trace and lane-keep systems, and was impressed with how measured yet accurate these systems were in practice.

When I veered out of my lane, the car nudged itself back in gently but efficiently, while the lane-trace system capably maintained the car’s placement in the centre of the lane without requiring any steering input from me.

The active cruise system with distance control was quick to detect speed changes from the car in front – even at high speeds – and was swift, yet never abrupt, in slowing the car.

Mazda CX-90: Fuel economy

Mazda quotes a fuel economy figure of 8.2L/100km for the petrol CX-90 models, and 5.4L/100km for the diesel models.

Unfortunately, my brief test drive was conducted at high speeds on short loops, so it wasn’t a fair representation of fuel usage in the real world. We’ll investigate fuel consumption more thoroughly once we can test the CX-90 on local roads.

Mazda CX-90: Verdict

The Mazda CX-90 takes the practical, spacious and refined package of its predecessor, the Mazda CX-9, and turns it into an upmarket offering with impressively sporty handling and gutsy performance.

For the sake of prospective buyers, I wish the interior offered a little more overt luxury in order to sweeten the bitter pill of a price rise over the outgoing CX-9, but it’s certainly a comfortable, well-appointed cabin across the range.

It also signals a shift away from mass-market rivals like Kia or Toyota and towards a more premium market position, evidenced by the focus on quality materials and sports-car engineering.

At its core, the 2023 Mazda CX-90 feels like a glimpse at the future of the Mazda brand – capable of acknowledging the family-friendly focus of its present-day customer, while giving a cheeky nod to the motorsport pedigree of its past.