Mazda CX-7 Road Test

Mazda CX-7

The outer two rear seats have isoFix child seat anchorage points with top tether point on the rear of the seats. Our Bebe Confort child seat fitted securely and easily to the isoFix points. Between the rear seats is a centre armrest which houses two cup holders.

The Mazda CX-7 has a bespoke nine speaker Bose sound system with a 6-CD in dash auto-changer which produces 240 watts of power. This includes a Centerpoint surround sound system that utilises innovative signal processing to achieve surround sound from a normal stereo source through five channels - centre front, left/right front and left/right rear, to emulate the acoustics of a concert hall. The system is also able to optimise the sound using Audio Pilot® that automatically adjusts tone characteristics to cancel out cabin noise at any particular moment.

The Bose system is excellent in the CX-7 although it does require quite a bit of volume to get it going.

Surprisingly there wasn’t an input jack for an mp3 player or iPod, which was bit of an omission bearing in mind the lower spec’d Mazda2, has one. Conveniently there are two 12v sockets between the front seats and the audio system can be controlled from the steering wheel. One thing that did puzzle us was that we lost the radio, which we discovered was down to the system being set to pick up traffic announcements which it couldn’t find in rural Ireland.

It would have been nice to have had an integrated Satellite Navigation system in the package, but sadly you will have to make do with an aftermarket add on, such as TomTom.

To protect the Mazda CX-7 from unwanted attention there is Thatcham Category 1 alarm and immobiliser. We like the fact that the doors can be locked internally from the driver’s and front passengers side, ideal to protect children in the rear.

The Mazda CX-7 gets front, side and full length curtain airbags that help protect front and rear seat passengers in the event of a roll over or severe side impact. There is (DSC) Dynamic Stability Control with (TC) Traction Control which is coupled to the Active Torque 4-Wheel Drive System, which makes for a very sure footed drive.

We liked the exterior and interior styling of the CX-7 it is certainly an eye catching car. We lost count of the number of comments, including people who were keen to buy one. The colour certainly helped 'Aurora Blue' which in our opinion is the ideal colour for the CX-7. The interior is typically Mazda both functional and sports orientated, it was very pleasing.

We only have two real criticisms of the Mazda CX-7 and these aren’t really anything to do with the CX-7, rather that Mazda hasn't released an automatic and diesel version in the UK, yet!

We enjoyed our time with the CX-7 it is both rewarding and great fun to drive, especially over the 2,000 miles we covered in Ireland and if we were in the market for this type of vehicle it would go straight to the top of our shopping list.

Mazda CX-7