Mazda CX-30 2020 review: G20 Astina

First, the price. Yes, the CX-30 is quite a bit more expensive than its CX-3 smaller sibling (which, as it turns out, it will not replace) while only being slightly larger. It shares its underpinnings and much of its switchgear and trim with the Mazda3 hatch, which is not a bad thing at all.

Its $38,990 MSRP places it in competition with other segment-bending SUVs like the Nissan Qashqai and Renault Koleos, but toward the top end of each model’s line-up. The fact that you can have the Mazda in the top-spec Astina grade without being forced into a bigger engine or all-wheel drive is a neat touch for those who don’t care for the extra grunt, and adds real budget flexibility to the range.

You probably don’t need all-wheel drive, especially if you’re planning on sticking to suburban limits anyway.

So, what does the Astina grade buy you? The top-spec car gets 18-inch gunmetal alloy wheels, an 8.8-inch multimedia touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity as well as digital radio and built-in nav, a 12-speaker premium Bose audio system, LED headlights and tail-lights with auto-high beam and progressive indicators, leather trimmed seats with 10-way power adjust for the driver, heating for the front two seats, front and rear parking cameras and sensors with a 360-degree top-down function, dual-zone climate control, and keyless entry with push-start ignition.

Sounds like a lot. And it is. Keep in mind the Astina also has an equally formidable safety suite which you can read about later in this review, but suffice it to say it’s one of the best in the segment.

There is a slight catch, though. The grand majority of the equipment (bar some of the luxe stuff like leather heated seats) comes on the cheaper Touring and most of the necessary stuff comes on much cheaper Evolve grade, and to look at from the outside, there really isn’t much to distinguish them, either.

It also lacks some small non-deal breaking advanced connectivity items (which you might expect in premium-badged rivals) like USB-C, wireless phone charging, or a Wi-Fi hotspot.

The CX-30 is pretty much the perfect size for a city commuter. It’s in the perfect zone between just being a lifted hatch, and actually taking advantage of the extra design space granted by the extra ride height of an SUV.

It still falls short of something like the Nissan Qashqai, Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, or Renault Kadjar, all of which lean into the extra size of this odd void between a small SUV and a mid-sizer. Instead, the CX-30 has chosen to be more design and front passenger focused than those more family-oriented options.

It’s odd, too, given the CX-30 is only a smidge more practical than its smaller CX-3 sibling. Deliberately targeting empty-nesters and young couples? I’d say so.

The optional brown/cream contrast trim in our test car is certainly a lifestyle choice at any rate.

Legroom and headroom are notably limited in the rear.

The front seats feel pretty lavish, and the leather trim of the seats proved nice and comfortable on longer trips. Strangely though, there’s a lack of the kind of modern cabin storage which many of the CX-30’s competitors, both on the budget and premium end of the market now have.

The centre console, for example, only has a small shelf under the climate controls which could barely fit wallets and phones, two large cupholders placed far forward on the transmission tunnel (with one of those early 2000s-style plastic fold-out covers), a decently-sized centre console box with a single USB port, and that’s about it. The doors have small trenches and bottle-holders in them, and the glove box is too shallow to eat the user manual.

One boost is the leather-trimmed padded surfaces everywhere you’ll reasonably come into contact with, which go a long way to making the cabin go the extra distance toward feeling ‘premium’.

A mixture of soft-touch surfaces adorn the CX-30's minimalist dash design.

One small annoyance was the sunroof. It’s small, placed almost halfway back in the cabin, and didn’t appear to have a diffuser for wind. A design like this calls for a panoramic roof, but the one which comes on the CX-30 is borderline useless above 60km/h because it makes the cabin so noisy. All the headspace wasted for something which functions only as a small window seems silly.

The story for rear seat occupants is not as good as it is for the front seats. Legroom and headroom are notably limited (especially when compared to premium rivals like the Q3 Sportback), and there are no power outlets, leaving rear passengers with only a set of directional air vents in terms of amenities.

Again, there are small bottle holders in the doors, a drop-down armrest, and pockets on the back of the front seats.

The boot presents a better story than the tiny one in the CX-3, but it still could be better. On offer is 317 litres of storage space which is smaller than most rivals in the class. Still, it consumed our largest (124L) CarsGuide travel case alongside my usual equipment bags with a little room to spare, so if you rarely need the space you might not miss it.

This is one of the key areas where this Mazda falls well short of the premium end of the market. The world of small capacity turbos, dual-clutch transmissions, and hybrid systems still seems to elude Mazda.

It’s a part of the market where a 2.0-litre non-turbo four-cylinder engine with middling power figures (114kW/200Nm) just seems so… ordinary.

The 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine makes 114kW/200Nm.

To top it off, the engine is only Euro5 compliant, meaning you shouldn’t feel particularly environmentally responsible driving it, and the 0-100km/h sprint time of over 10 seconds shouldn’t come as a surprise.

That said, there is a refreshing simplicity to the lack of a dual-clutch a-la VW T-Roc, or a dreaded CVT like the Lexus UX. And Mazda hopes its incoming SkyActiv-X semi-compression-ignition technology will be its big step forward. We hope to learn more about the new engine locally soon in this car’s Mazda3 sibling, so stay tuned for our review.

The lack of engine tech translates to a pretty ordinary fuel figure, and not for the right reasons.

See, while we truly enjoyed driving something turbocharged and punchy when it came to the T-Roc, the same-if-not-higher consumption of this Mazda is nothing to write home about, especially since my week involved a healthy dose of freeway running.

Several hundred kilometres later, and a dash-returned figure of 8.0L/100km, while not terrible, was hardly impressive.

Mazda covers its fleet with a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty promise which is up to spec with all of its major Japanese competitors, and still ahead of some premium automakers still offering three-year cover (or in the case of Lexus, a four-year warranty).

Mazda offers capped price servicing for the first five years, costing between $315 and $360 per annual (or 10,000km) visit. It works out to an affordable yearly average cost for the life of the warranty of $333 per year.