2017 Mazda 6 vs Skoda Superb

What's the difference?

The Mazda6 GT wagon looks stunning and is great to drive, but it doesn’t have the cargo capacity of rivals such as the Passat and Superb. As for the GT grade, I’d be looking at the Touring instead – it’s about $5K less and you’re only really missing out on the proximity key, which is great, but not $5K great. Good on you for considering a wagon, too. It’s the thinking person's alternative to an SUV.

It's genuinely difficult to fault the Superb in this spec, although the front-wheel drive 162TSI version is on par in practical terms and can be had for almost $12,000 less, albeit with fewer toys.

However, the Superb SportLine wants for almost nothing in terms of specs and appointments, and it differs from the regular 206TSI thanks to its subtle, sporting demeanor.

It's flexible, strong and elegant, and it's as practical as any sports utility vehicle on sale today.

Skoda does well with the Superb in relation to the rest of its line up, but even within its own ranks, a coming challenger in the form of the Kodiaq SUV will make life unnecessarily difficult for this well-priced, well-specced wagon.

If you don't need a high-riding 4x4-esque SUV, and you're not concerned about the badge your car wears – or even if you are – you really need to short-list the Superb for a test drive.

The Mazda6 sedan is a good-looking car, and even as a wagon it’s appealing, with that sloping roofline, those curvaceous wheel arches and long bonnet. The shape isn’t new either – sure there have been updates, but this model came out in 2012 and it doesn’t look out of date. 

Can you tell it’s a GT from the outside? No. Well yes, but only by the wheels and headlamps – the GT has 19-inch alloy wheels and LED headlights, but so does the top-of-the-range Atenza.

Inside, the Mazda6 GT wagon’s stylish cabin has a premium feel with leather seats and an excellent fit and finish. All the touch points throughout the cockpit are soft or padded, and all the controls, from the paddle shifters to the climate buttons, are perfectly placed and feel refined.

There are spots where the cabin is showing its age – that head-up display once seemed cool but now appears dinky and the display is tiny and antiquated by Volkswagen and Skoda standards these days.

How long is the Mazda6 wagon? It might not look like it, but the wagon is shorter end-to-end than the sedan. The dimensions don’t lie; the wagon is 4800mm long, the sedan is 4865mm.

Compared to its rivals, the Mazda6 wagon is 110mm longer than the Subaru Levorg and 33mm longer than the Passat wagon, but 71mm shorter than the Mondeo wagon and 61mm shorter than the Superb wagon.

Don’t be fooled, though, longer doesn’t mean it has a bigger cargo area - all will be revealed in the practicality section below.

There's a feeling that the Skoda brand has supplemented the now defunct Saab as the thinking driver's car of choice. In fact, Skoda defies its origins as a discount sub-brand of Volkswagen, with almost every vehicle sold locally optioned up like, as Skoda's product manager Kieran Merrigan told us, "a Christmas tree."

The Superb has a bold, masculine, yet friendly shape that manages to avoid being slab-sided and dull. The blacked out presentation of the SportLine variant is nicely underplayed, while the distinctive alloys give the Superb a real presence.

The Superb wagon is an amazingly versatile car that's easy to live with.

Its front end is not a million miles away from the one that adorns its smaller Octavia sibling, but in its wagon guise, the Superb SportLine is a genuine head-turner.

Inside, the Superb is clearly a high-end VW Group car, but the unique seats and sports trim and interesting Skoda touches - door bins, for example - set it apart.

Nobody buys a wagon by accident. You get a wagon because you’ve preempted regular situations when you’re going to have to carry stuff. Lots of stuff. Wagons are basically utes with a roof for people that don’t get dirty.

So not much point in getting a wagon if the cargo capacity doesn’t meet your requirements. The Mazda6 wagon has 506 litres of boot space, while the sedan version has 474 litres. Yes, that sounds like the wagon is small, but the big hatch opening and being able to fold the seats down opens up a 1648-litre cargo area.

The Passat wagon isn’t as long as the Mazda6 wagon, but its cargo capacity is 650 litres, or 1780 litres with the seats folded flat. The Superb has an enormous 660 litres or 1950 litres with the second row folded. The Levorg’s cargo area is smaller than the Mazda’s, with 489 litres, and so is the Mondeo’s, with 488 litres.

Cabin storage is good with two cup holders up front and two in the back. There’s also a large centre console storage bin and bottle holders in the doors, too.

As for humans, I’m one of those (but a tall one at 191cm) and I can sit behind my driving position with about 20mm of space. Headroom is also good back there.

The Mazda6 wagon’s coupe styling looks great, but the rear door opening is smaller because of it and I noticed this meant bending more to put my toddler into his car seat.

The Superb wagon is an amazingly versatile car that's easy to live with. Its electric tailgate opens to reveal a cavernous luggage space; there is 660 litres behind the seats, which expands to 1960 litres when the seats are flipped down.

We love the handy seat releases near the rear door, along with shopping bag hooks, cargo cover, load restraint points, nets and a 12-volt socket. The load cover can interfere when larger bags or boxes are stowed, though, and the Skoda also sports an odd pseudo storage hammock that could easily be deleted.

Storage is plentiful, and there are two cupholders up front and another pair in the flip-down rear centre armrest – though the cupholders are frustratingly tiny in their diameter, defying even a regular can of drink.

Another four bottles can be stashed in the front and rear door pockets.

Rear seaters can also control the climate via temperature adjusters if they so desire. The SportLine even has heated rear outside seats, which also have ISOFIX child seat mounts added to them.

Up front is an inductive phone charging slot; simply place a suitable phone flat on the pad, and the car will charge the phone without a cable. Not only that, but the pad can enhance the signal of the phone. It didn't work with every phone we tried, though, and the slot is too small for huge devices like Apple's iPhone 6S.

If you're worried about ride height, don't be; the Superb cleared our steep drive test front and rear with ease.

The multimedia system has an 8.0-inch touchscreen and easy to use satellite navigation as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Phones are easy to connect and stay connected, too.

Seating is generous and supportive in all positions, with loads of room throughout the car for five people. Rear legroom is a particular standout, with our lanky teen enjoying limo-like space in the back seat.

The Alcantara fabric isn't perhaps as soft and as luxurious as the leather you'd find in the 206TSI 4x4, but it's grippy and comfortable, and cleans up just as easily as the leather, despite having perforations. Don't ask how we tested that...

And as usual, Skoda adds its cool little touches, with small umbrella ports in both front doors and garbage bins in the door pockets, as well as sun shades on the rear side windows.

Oh, and if you're worried about ride height, don't be; the Superb cleared our steep drive test front and rear with ease.

The Superb is based on the same Volkswagen Group MQB platform that underpins the Volkswagen Passat. This particular model is known as the SportLine, and supplements the previous range-topper, the 206TSI 4x4, by dint of a handful of extra bits and pieces and an extra thousand dollars on its price ticket.

The sedan costs $51,990, while it's $53,690 for the wagon tested here (plus on-road costs).

On top of the already well specced 206TSI the SportLine picks up a black finish on the mirror caps, rear diffuser, roof rails and front grille, as well as black door trim pieces, unique 19-inch alloys and SportLine badging on the front guards.

The Superb has a bold, masculine, yet friendly shape that manages to avoid being slab-sided and dull.

A new dashboard instrument cluster is finished in white trim, there are Alcantara-trimmed front and rear seats and door card inserts, a flat-bottomed sports wheel, alloy pedals, black roof lining and a sports monitor that adds boost, power, and engine oil temperature gauges as well as a lap timer.

The SportLine also gains all the standard inclusions of the 206TSI, including auto lights and wipers, LED headlights and tail-lights, heated front and rear seats and an inductive phone charging bay.

It also has radar cruise control, auto emergency braking, lane departure control and rear cross traffic alert as standard.

The only options on the SportLine are metallic/pearlescent paint ($700) and a sunroof ($1900).

The Mazda6 GT wagon is available with a diesel or the 2.5-litre petrol engine which was in our test car. Producing 138kW of power and 250Nm of torque, the engine is smooth, quiet and has plenty of oomph.

This is a front-wheel-drive car and the transmission is a six-speed automatic. 

The same (EA888) 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder motor that powers the VW Golf R is the engine of choice for the SportLine, and it makes the same 206kW as its corporate cousin.

Torque is rated at a hefty 350Nm from a low of 1700rpm, and it hurls the SportLine wagon to 100km/h from rest in a claimed 5.8sec.

It's backed by a six-speed dual clutch transmission and runs a Haldex all-wheel drive (AWD) layout that biases traction to the front wheels. The Superb also has a drive mode select switch that modifies the behaviour of the throttle, gearbox and steering. It also runs adaptive dampers.

Mazda says the wagon with the 2.5-litre petrol engine and six-speed auto should use 6.6L/100km when driven on a combo of urban, country and city roads. Our car spent most of its life with us in the city and our trip computer was saying we were averaging 10.2L/100km. 

Skoda rates the Superb SportLine at 7.3L/100km on the combined fuel economy cycle, and it needs 95RON fuel as a minimum. Its 70-litre tank should yield 958km of range.

Over 380km of testing, the Superb returned 12.2L/100km according to the dash, which is a surprisingly high figure when compared to the claimed average. The majority of the test was conducted with the car in Sport mode, but this has only a marginal effect on consumption.

Mazda’s ‘thing’ is making cars that are fun to drive – the company takes this seriously, and when a new car is launched they devote a lot of time explaining the pains they went to in making the car engaging to pilot.

And the effort seems to pay off; Mazdas really are good to drive, and the Mazda6 is no exception.

Steering is smooth, well-weighted and accurate, the engine is responsive and has a sport mode (which is actually sporty), and the six-speed auto gets the drive to those front wheels well. There were times, though, that the front wheels would lose traction - especially from a standing start on a hill.

Handling is good and the ride is comfortable, too. Although the lower profile tyres on the GT grade (225/45 R19) do mean you’ll feel the bumps and cracks in the road more than the thicker-walled tyres on the lower grades.

And finally, a wagon will almost always be better to drive than an SUV, and that's because it has a lower centre of mass and that gives it superior handling. Just like a car. Because that's what it is.

The Golf-R engined Superb belies its size with mid-range urge that would shame a lot of larger capacity engines. It's not as vocal – it's not an RS model, after all – and it's missing a bit of the oomph that Skoda Australia's hot weather tuning takes out of the European spec engine (about 16kW and 30Nm), but it's still a marvel to think this big car has such a relatively small engine under the bonnet.

Its chassis balance is spot on, too, with the 19-inch wheels and 235/40 R19 tyres still offering a decent ride compliance, as well as sharper handling when the dampers are turned up to Sport.

The Superb shrinks around the driver, behaving for the most part like a smaller, more agile car.

The AWD system, too, is a great addition, providing a more stable, connected feel that ties both ends of the car better than the FWD-only versions. Be warned, though – AWD cars need to have all four tyres replaced at the same time, even if you've only worn the fronts or damaged a single tyre.

Steering feel is good, if a little isolated, but overall, the Superb shrinks around the driver, behaving for the most part like a smaller, more agile car.

The five-star ANCAP Superb is well equipped with safety kit, including nine airbags (front driver and passenger, driver's knee airbag, front and rear side airbags and front and rear curtain airbags), AEB (auto emergency braking) which operates at speeds of up to 65km/h, lane departure assistance, adaptive cruise control, side assist and rear traffic alert.

The Mazda6 wagon is covered by Mazda’s three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 10,000km and is capped at $305 for the first service, $333 for the second, $305 for the next, then $333 and back to $305.

Skoda offers a pre-paid 'Service Pack' for the Superb , with a three-year/45,000km plan costing $1299 and a five-year/75,000 plan coming in at $2650.

Service intervals of 15,000km or 12 months are suggested.

The car is covered by a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty.