Should You Buy a 2023 Mazda CX-50? Impressive SUV with Some Issues! #mazdapakistan #CX50crossover

 Hello and welcome to the Something Unique Blogspot channel so today we have a 2023 mazda cx-50 this is a new model that master just came out with and i have been driving it for a week to see is this a good model there's a lot of good talk about this model mazda is very excited and they should be as you'll find out in this blog.

 We're going to do a full technical review as usual we're going to take a look at the inside the outside to see how did mazda do with the cx-50 and more importantly should you consider buying one but before we get started if you're new to the Blogspot welcome consider following to the channel check out some other blogs if you are a returning follower well thank you so much for Reading another one of my blogs and without further ado let's get right into it let's start with the technical review under the hood there are really good news out there folks mazda decided in this generation to give us two engine options and these are actually good news because there is a 2.5 liter four-cylinder engine and then there is a 2.5 liter four-cylinder engine one of them is turbocharged and the other one is not so this gives you kind of the best of both worlds people are divided about turbo engines some of them like them because they're efficient they have more power you can have a smaller engine that gets get gas mileage and good performance and some people like the old ways and they'd rather have simple reliability less is more and not have the turbo well in the cx-50 you have a choice of either and the best part about that is and we're gonna slightly come off the technical review here you're not stuck with a base model when you don't want the turbo engine you can actually option this out to the top witha non-turbo engine or you can option this out with a turbo engine one thing though if you want the turbo engine you can't really get a base based model it only starts with mid trims and up but hey it is something you have a choice of a turbo engine or a non-turbo engine now this engine let's talk about some of its highlights it is a skyactiv g we've seen this engine in a lot of other models especially the cx-5 very good engine doesn't really have a lot of known issues there are however a thing or two that we're not liking about it it is direct injected only in both of them that means you have a potential to build up carbon as time goes by and there has been some evidence of that but with good maintenance good gas use they should be minimal the other thing is the turbo one the turbo is on the back side makes service harder my opinion turbos should be in the front makes them wide open they cool better and they generate less heat generally in the area of the engine but that's the design they went with and turbos all the way in the back now the sky active g part we've talked about this in a lot of mazda and toyota blogs because this technology actually you'll see it in both and many others so the vvti system or variable valve timing system uses an electric motor to advance and retire the timing sounds like a disaster on paper but it's actually a very good and reliable system and it gives you almost infinite adjustability it is a very good system now something that is i've noticed this in two months does now and that is not the best idea in the planet and let's kind of focus on it the cooling system there's nothing really extravagant about the cooling system here.

         You know you have the extra stuff for the turbo by the way this is the turbo model that we're looking at here but where the radiator cap is is plastic and to add insult to injury the engine cover actually sits on that piece of plastic so every time you remove the engine cover you are disturbing this plastic piece that have multiple hoses going to it and the radiator cap perhaps not the best idea in the planet to put any plastic in coolant components but let alone now it's a high volume use area it is always being every time you pull the engine cover that gets disturbed every time you pull the radiator cap that gets disturbed i will say however the little plastic piece does have good quality feel to it but still experience tells us plastic and coolant do not get along and especially in a high use area like this that is possibly the only thing i dislike about this engine otherwise it seems very neatly packaged seems simple-ish to work on except that turbo in the back batteries right here air filters right here and one thing i would like to note see mazda is coming out of their four days which is what almost brought mazda to sneeze and now enter toyota days much much better days because mazda on their own they're a great company when ford came in things went south a little bit but now we have mazda back on their own and you see some of that here i mean i'm a toyota technician if guys you guys don't know that i worked for toyota dealership for a long time just looking at this this kind of reminds me there's a lot of toyotas here the battery orientation and how the air filter is right here and kind of goes it just looks like any car that with a dynamic force engine just a general design language the only thing that is different that is the mazda part on the other side of the engine you have the engine computer proudly sitting right there very easily accessible it's not buried behind the dash and all that it's right there this actually a lot of people don't like this they just oh it's better protected inside actually it is not better protected inside it is better right here because less wiring you don't have to run the wiring inside the car and all that mess sits right there it's beautiful it's great weatherproof life is great there hasn't really been issues with engine computers sitting under the hood and getting water in them perhaps the best part about the cx-50 and other modern mazda models the transmission you don't have a cvt here you don't have a dual clutch transmission here you actually have a conventional old-school six-speed transmission with a twist now i love this transmission because it shifts so smooth it doesn't have eight and 10 12 and 17 million gears it just has six speeds not really confused shifts very fine you don't feel it hunting for gears it's just beautiful it works beautifully but something about other companies are going with dual clutch and cvt and all this mess is gas mileage so this gets decent gas mileage because of the twist with this automatic transmission so instead of a conventional torque converter from a 55 chevy we have a very modern torque converter that has a very cool feature to it so all torque converters will have a clutch.

      So when you're driving on the highway that clutch is a very rudimentary and old-school clutch will engage to to kind of make a direct drive so you're not losing power to that fluid coupler that is inside the torque converter well mazda came up with the ultimate solution and i wish everybody would do this because it is brilliant it's really a good idea instead of that 1955 chevy torque converter lock up clutch which which is a very rudimentary clutch very sensitive and very weak really can't deal with any torque they put a multi-disc clutch multi-plate so now as soon as you take off you have a heavy duty clutch that will engage andthere's no more losses for the from the torque converter this is very smart some people will say this is unnecessary complication it actually is not it's just a clutch that it's a heavier duty clutch it engages very smooth you don't even feel it and then when you come to a stop it just disengages now we're back to the fluid coupling of the torque converter you will have a very efficient drivetrain and you will not have losses this is a great idea and when you drive this car i've been driving this for a week it shifts beautifully you don't it's seamless you don't feel that shift it is beautiful and last before we talk about the all-wheel drive system and we lift this up first something is very welcome hood shocks and this goes with the theme of this car which we're going to talk about a little bit eventually when we get to the inside and outside this is really nice to see because you still have models that are pretty high dollar bottles that have the stick nothing wrong with that but this is the kind of touches that tells me they care and i love to see this here i wish all cars have this the stick a little too old maybe in an economy car but not in a car that costs this much and it's really welcome to see this let's take a look underneath the cx-50 the first thing you notice it's all covered up something that is nice with new cars i really like this some folks will say this makes maintenance very hard and complicated and all that but actually there's an access door right here that's where your oil filter and drain plug is very simple and then there is this little vent right here that actually cools the power steering motor because this has electric power steering and then let's take a look at the front suspension there are a couple interesting things here first the control arm and the ball joint are one unit you have to press this out press this in makes service a little bit more complicated but that's the design they went with and it's not the end of the world but i would have loved to see a separate ball joint from the control arm but another thing that is very interesting the backing plate has a cutout in it for where the wall joint goes i don't know what happened here but.

          This is a pretty exposed area for the rotor here that is interesting setup right there otherwise this very typical suspension mcpherson strut goes all the way at the top single piston caliper nothing really over complicated or over the top here and then let's take a little walk around this car you notice you have the cattle the converter right there loud and proud and somebody have taken this particular one serious off-roading you can see the mud right there and it took it it did well but uh i don't think it's meant for that kind of off-roading that's a bit much catalog converter right here on top of the catalog converter you notice the drive shaft is right there pretty nice and tucked away center support bearing is right there and then we take this back to where things get a little interesting you look at this setup right here it almost looks like this was an afterthought because this actually has beam suspension in the pack you see the beam right there i mean not what you'd expect from mazda something that is actually odd usually they have a multi-link here life is good but this has beam suspension one thing i'll say about being suspension is it works it's very rugged very strong not the best for handling though that's the one downside to it but what is interesting is this cutie pie i mean this is probably up there in one of the smallest differentials i've ever seen i don't know how well this will do off-roading and it's actually not a proper all-wheel drive because this is a viscous coupler in the front and the best part is the viscous coupler is bigger than the differential pretty interesting setup here but the viscous coupler basically engages or disengages the all-wheel drive the driveshaft is always spinning it's connected to the transfer case in the front and this is where the connection happens or not happen something else is the cute driveshaft now this would be perfectly fine in a family suv that is you know has all-wheel drive for snow driving and whatnot but when you say the words off-roading and i see this little differential these little axles that's when i say this is probably not a great idea spring is right here which is not a very big spring coil spring and then the shock is right there very simple very easy to access and work on you notice there is a lot of space here i mean it's wide open here to work on it differential is very simple to remove it just feels like an afterthought for some reason i have that feeling because there's nothing really to guard it anything can come here and just attach here.

          Just grab the whole thing all it's attached with is this point right here and then the other points right there that's uh not the ideal setup for an off-road car but that's what they went with here is your caliper that has electronic parking brake on it here's your muffler which is a pretty big muffler and has two tail pipes everything is conventional except this beam suspension was actually a surprise to see here the 2023 car but hey beam suspension works really good it's very simple very rugged but handling wise it could be better covers all over and you see muds all over these covers somebody really took this for a serious off-roading track and you have some body supports which is nice for rigidity you have one here and one there and that about wraps it up things are pretty pretty simple underneath the cx-50 here let's talk about the exterior of mazda cx-50 and one thing instantly that comes to your mind when you see this thing it is elegant it is sharp it is just it has this presence and mazda's been doing really cool looking cars it's not a sports car that is meant to move your emotions but actually this is a very elegant and sophisticated design i love their new designs they look really nice and this car was actually designed to kind of be for that fun family that's outdoorsy that goes light off-road and all that so something about this car is it has very good ground clearance without how it is having a massive really large gap i mean the gaps here are normal and i like it it doesn't make the car look like it's just a lifted normal car no it was designed with that in mind and that's why it doesn't interfere with the overall design language there are a few highlights in the front of this car first i really like the design of the headlights however this does look you can't mistake this or anything but a mazda because it looks really sharp looks really nice but there are a few touches here that are very specific to the cx-50 there is this bulge and this is part of the grille it just you know flows but over here this balls are so just out there in your face a little bit of uh too much but that's the design language and when you blend it with everything in there it looks nice but then there is another one there is a little strip orange light right here just to give it that overland feel it's not really an overland suv this one you're not going to take this with your full runner up there but for light off-roading i think this would work regardless of what the mazda's message is for off-roading the disc is very capable and actually somebody has taken this particular one off-roading before but it's not really a true four-wheel drive it can handle light off-roading gravel roads whatever have you but not mudding and all that but uh you got the orange cool lights here just to kind of give you that indication that this is a little bit more capable off-road than your average family suv then we move over to the side and if you look at the side there are a few things going on first the bubbled wheel arches i love those folks every time i see a car that has true bubble flare ashes it just looks right i like the design.

              

      You look at it just has this dramatic look and usually everyday cars when they have this bubbled flare arches they will look wrong because the wheel will be tiny and it's sucked in and it just just looks off this one however the wheels are sitting just in the right position at least in this trim the other thing that is not very nice at least in my opinion but this is not just mazda the black clad thing kind of reminds me of a pontiac aztec but hey it's there and this is a new trend and apparently when they put these black stuff around it makes it look more off-roady and kind of outdoorsy then we move over to the back and this is business as usual for mazda very sharp looking tail lights i love the design of this but one thing i love the most the curve is not extreme it is actually almost flat it does have a little bit of curve in the glass but i like this because majority of this curve is actually the door itself popped out this does not rob from your space and space you have plenty of this we'll look at it in a little bit and then something that is interesting and i don't know why car manufacturers do this this vent yes they give this car more of a muscular look in the front there's actually similar vents and they are functional for the brakes over here they're not functional they don't do anything it kind of confuses the image here i think because you look at the taillights you look at the overall design looks so elegant and then you look at this just doesn't match that's the only concern i have about the back you have dual exhaust tips pretty cool looking otherwise this is very elegant design let's talk about the interior of the mazda cx-50 and this is where this model truly shines in my opinion i mean you sit here and you almost start to forget that you are in a toyota honda rival your this feels like lexus acura quality here i mean first the first thing you look here across the dash there's this big leather panel that has this very nice not regular stitching like almost like a football stitching style and then that same stitching carries in the seats and in the back and in the middle it's just such these little touches make a huge difference same stitching on the steering wheel it looks so elegant and so nice so thought out you see it on the doors it just it's a very nice touch it doesn't have to be extravagant materials here to give it that high quality feel but it's just the small touches really make a huge difference and you look here it's not over the top and this is something that luxury cars are becoming over the top it's just too much stuff going on this keeps things simple but elegant very high quality materials very functional layout i love it i mean you look here in the center stack you got your hvac controls very simple very nicely laid out anybody can operate this they're of course automatic dual zone when you turn the knobs it has this very high quality like clicks this these are the things you're going to operate every day they need to be high quality not the buttons that you're never going to use in five years time and then you go over here and this is something i love at old school physical shifter i mean we don't need a rotary dial we don't need buttons we are used to shifter it really doesn't make a huge difference if this has some spaceship style shifter or this this works great looks very elegant looks very classy very nice and then you have the giant rotary knob for the infotainment system.

  We're in happy times right now so let's skip over this we'll come back to it in a little bit and then you move over to the gauges and this is where i really like these gauges it's not basically for like a better word a giant ipad no you have a tachometer on the side you have your other gauges your temperature or whatnot and then you have a screen in the middle now the screen is not this super configurable and all this craziness no it does have a few themes that you can change nice gives you different information different choices if you would but there are some cool touches here and for the most part the middle screen really is just the speedometer but there are a few cool things that i really like of course this has all the latest safety features and all that one of them is speed limit recognition so this picks up the speed limit as you drive camera right here on the windshield picks it up and that's nothing new but what is cool it displays that speed limit as a red line on your speedometer and when you cross the speed limit that red line starts rising with the needle it kind of tells you how far off your speed limit you are this is a very nice safety touch it's very clear very easy to see and then a small interesting touch here the turn signals they have this flash and then they kind of fade slowly you see that on the dash and it does have an interesting sound to them this is a very soft sound i like it and they kind of come on and fade slowly and that's just not on the gauge cluster only that's actually the actual turn signals i like that that is pretty cool the seats are extremely comfortable the bolsters are really not high or big or excessive because this is not a sports car and some manufacturers have been going a little overboard with their seats this have very very nice seats one thing i will say about the seats they are a little too narrow that's the only thing about them otherwise they are very comfortable and they are very nice simplicity is a theme here ease of use is the theme here.

 I mean apart from the ac controls being a simple you have physical buttons for your steering wheel heater for your seat coolers and heaters and by the way on  the upper trims you have seat heaters in the back again the hint to that lexus acura thing over toyota honda very nice interior here i mean the materials are really top-notch here the fit finish is exceptional here and you really start to see where mazda shines and these interiors really do a good job but of course nothing is perfect now let's talk about some things that they absolutely did not get right the radio situation i'm calling it a situation because there is no other way to call it so for the longest time i've been saying and many others have said that the radio systems are outdated they're not touch screen you have to operate the dial and all that and then we just reviewed the mazda miata that was not a touch screen but had wireless apple carplay kind of a difference in technology levels so buster listen ish so now you have a touch screen but the problem is the touchscreen is so far away from you especially if you're sitting in the driver's seat it's basically unusable i mean they could have moved screen a little bit closer you have a kind of a blank space here this is where the vent is and you have a space you could have moved it closer so we can actually use it as a touch screen so far away in the week that i've drove it i always use the rotary we're kind of back to the same thing look the rotary dial it works but when you have apple carplay it's not really designed to work with something like that it's designed to be touch and it it really is distracting i don't like it even though the snap feels wonderful when you operated the clicks it just doesn't work could have moved the screen a little bit forward would have been much better something that is i wish they never change even if they get rid of this knob and we have a screen closer the volume control right here this is something mercedes-benz actually used to do they still do in some models i wish every car has this the radio knob doesn't need to be on the dash it needs to be right here you are driving change the volume without looking without thinking it's a great idea to have it right here then there are some.

     What i call after thoughts so i feel like they designed this car and they didn't have all the options on it and lo and behold let's put the options because if you look at the speaker right here on the door it says bose it's a great sound system by the way i love it i have to say that but the location of the speaker blocks half the vent that defog's your passenger a driver window it's the same thing on the driver's door this is a total absolute afterthought you kind of see this stuff and makes you wonder did they really want to put this radio system and they put it last minute let's talk about the backseat briefly i am five seven this is my seating position i have decent knee room however there is actually a cutout in the seat which is pretty smart because this this is your normal sitting position not the sides but sitting in the middle i have plenty of lug room a little bit if you're taller you're gonna hit the sides of the seat but the metal is pushed in which is actually a pretty cool feature here to give you more legroom and then we look at the back of the cx-5 i wish this had a third row seat even though it would have been a very small one but at least an option would have been nicebut because you don't have it i mean this thing is enormous here there's a lot of room here and something that mazda did this is narrow kind of the car narrows down and it's tall and narrow the idea here is you can put your camping gear bicycles.

            What not it was designed to do that this is pretty cool but one thing that is cool here you have handles right here that fold the seats down pretty cool design i really like this now one thing because of this giant load floor you have a spare tire and a spare tire that sits so far back because this is enormous but one thing that is pretty cool the middle of the spare tire is used as a speaker a bose speaker and uses that cavity as a subwoofer box pretty cool idea and we've seen this in other mazda models as well so should you buy a mazda cx-50 folks this is truly a nice suv sure it does have its drawbacks no thirdrow seat the radio situation is a little not ideal but the nicest thing about this suv is it is the price like a toyota honda but feels like a lexus or acura it is such a nice interior such a nice place to be well executed looks nice on the outside looks nice on the inside very easy to operate very easy to drive and very very functional there is one drawback that i never mentioned in the entire video because they wanted to gear this a little bit toward off-road and kind of gave it that different suspension and the lift and whatnot there is one drawback to that the ride is noticeably bumpy now that might have to do with the 20-inch wheels very off-road-like 20-inch wheels with tiny little tires that this particular one has but the ride is very noticeably bumpy that kind of little bit takes away from the luxurious acura style interior and the feel of the whole car but one thing that is a big highlight the turbo and non-turbo engine options yes with the non-turbo engine option you have less power but you have the option of a non-turbo engine if you want to keep this car 15-20 years you feel nervous about that turbo or just buy the non-turbo model you have an option and that six-speed transmission is an absolute beauty and the best part about it is people will worry well wait a second that six-speed transmission has a twist to it has that cow over complicated torque converter situation well actually this is not new to this the cx-50 neither is the engine neither is the all-wheel drive system neither is anything really just the body and the interior and even the interior a lot of it is shared with other mazda models this is a bad thing for those that want the latest and the greatest but for 90 of people average joe who wants a nice suv to drive to work take their family and go out on trips and vacations this is good news because they did not design this from the ground up all noon all the problems.

 

                You're going to have the first few months and all that no this engine's been out for a while this transmission has been out for a while all they did was they designed the body and the interior around it well not much can go wrong with design of metal and interior and this is a good thing this one i think is a keeper especially with the non-turbo engine and even more with the rumors that they're coming out with a hybrid model with toyota hybrid components i think this is a prime candidate for a hybrid it is such a nice car inside and out it has decent power we're talking about the non-hybrid model here the one we're driving here the turbo one has decent power nothing over the top but not underpowered it just feels right hybrid fits this perfectly it does get decent gas mileage but if it gets even more gas mileage this would make it the ultimate family suv because it looks good feels good drives nice yes it's a little bumpy no third row but small compromise i'd say when you have a choice of a non-turbo engine and lastly i feel less ford more toyota and mazda here that ford effect that haunted mazda for a while.

             Has completely gone feel it's completely gone in this model and i feel more Toyota style reliability or the old school Mazda is back here the fit finish here is really impeccable good job Mazdaand  for this car looks good drives good it's not perfect but you know what it is really close to it folks i hope this blog was helpful informative i hope you learned something new if you like it consider giving a thumbs up if you're not a follower consider subscribing to the Blogspot check out some of my other blogs and until the next Blog folks may the lord bless you and keep you and you have yourself a wonderful day. #MAZDAPAKISTAN #CX50CROSSOVER