2018 Mazda CX-9 vs 2020

What's the difference?

The Christmas holidays aren’t a holiday – it’s hard work with the shopping, the families, the food, the ‘festiveness’ and the heat. You come out the other side more exhausted than you did going in.

Which is why my wife and I (well, it was really her) decided to be smart for once and take a week off with our toddler before Santa Day. We headed down to Jervis Bay from Sydney. I had an ulterior motive as well – to test the new Mazda CX-9. The largest SUV from Mazda underwent an update this year which brought new safety tech and practicality features.

I was looking forward to this – road testing a CX-9 packed to the brim with holiday gear. See, although we make the test vehicles part of our daily lives, often it’s just myself in the car - apart from the weekend and the daycare run. So how would the CX-9 handle, ride, steering and brake packed full of suitcases, a week’s shopping, eskies, beer, toys and people – well, the three of us?

Sure I was working on a holiday, but car journos are like cops, we’re never really off-duty.

Tell you what, there's rarely a dull moment in this gig. Well, you might think this is terribly dull, but jumping from the newest Mazda, the CX-30, to the big fella CX-9 was an interesting experience. 

Probably not for the obvious reasons - the CX-9 is Mazda's largest SUV, with seven-seats and the company's powerful 2.5-litre turbo. It's interesting because the CX-9 signalled the start of Mazda's current generation design, with it's slim headlights, simpler surfacing and truly excellent interior.

The CX-9 is probably more than halfway through its lifecycle now, so moving back to the start of the design shift made for some interesting observations.

And due to its age, Mazda's insights over the last few years meant a little re-jig of the range, with the Azami LE disappearing and the plain-old Azami taking over at the top of the of the offerings.