2018 Mazda CX-9 vs Volvo XC90

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.

Does the Volvo XC90 R-Design T6 have what it takes to match other large seven-seat prestige SUVs... or is it even better?

This Volvo XC90 is where it all began for Volvo way back in 2014. Okay, let me rephrase that, it wasn't the beginning of Volvo – that was in 1927. This second-generation XC90 was a kind of new beginning for Volvo because it brought with it the styling and technology rules for the brand's future models. But how does it hold up now?

See, when the new XC90 arrived in Australia in 2015 it wowed us with its large portrait display, advanced safety equipment and 'Hammer of Thor' headlights. Since then, safety and tech has come along way - has the XC90 been left behind?

And while on the topic of reality checks: what's this large seven-seat SUV like to live with  – how did it cope with our nightmare car park test?

We tested the XC90 R-Design T6. What the heck does that mean? Well the T6 refers to the engine – it's a four-cylinder petrol – and R-Design is the highest trim level.

A four cylinder… in a giant SUV? Yep, we'll get to that.