2018 Mazda 6

SPEAKER: Thanks to trucks and SUVs, midsized sedans are no longer the King of sales. But some car makers aren't taking that lying down. The thoroughly redesigned Mazda 6 features a more elegant and mature design [INAUDIBLE] all around. Now its exterior styling is a little more subtle, but we feel the interior, by far its stand out feature, punches far above its weight. How does it compare against industry standards like the Camry and the Accord? Lets go and find out. At the front of the 6, Mazda both made the front end more aggressive and subtle at the same time. Let me explain. They've calmed down the signature wing, which is the trim piece that connects the two headlights together, and they moved the fog light into the headlight, cleaning up the whole front end. But they've kept the angular design that the Mazda 6 was known for. The new 19 inch wheels look bigger than they really are, because they've been designed so that the spokes go all the way up to the tire and are available on the top three trims. Bottom two trims get the more traditional 17 inch wheel. The back end of the car receives the same styling cues as the front, a flatter signature wing that connects the two taillights and larger exhaust tips to make the car look more sportier. But more importantly, let's take a look at the inside of the car where the big changes are. So here on the inside is where you are going to see the most differentiation. The previous Mazda 6 had a much more monolithic and vertical center console, whereas this generation is wide and expansive. There's not a lot of buttons in the middle like the old car. Instead, all you have is HVAC controls. And then down here, you have the controller for the infotainment system. Clearly, they're drawing design cues from other luxury car makers, and the material choices reflect that as well. On the signature trim, you have suede on the dash. You have leather seats and wood trim pieces all around. Unlike other car makers, they want you to really use the control knob for all the functions. Well there is a touch screen, it only works when the car is stopped. And also, to improve connectivity with the car, there's a big seven inch display right on the dash. And in fact, if we turn on the car, you can't really see the borders of it. It kind of blends in with the rest of the dash, and it displays things like your trip settings, your economy. Driver assisted navigation functions as well Another cool feature of the digital dash display is the ability to cycle through different modes. Now that's not particularly unique to the 6. But what is unique to the 6 is that you can turn it all off and have a very simplified view of your dash. Previous Mazda owners will also notice that there is no more flip up glass for the head up display. Instead, it's all integrated and projects directly on the windshield. When you add all these pieces up, you get a much more mature interior versus the old car. It's one that we really appreciate, and it's a design direction that we feel is going the right way. While the interior is all new, the chassis is still based off the old 6, which brings us to one issue that some may have a problem with, and that's the back seat. Definitely Camry and Accord have a larger backseat than this car. Now it's usable for most adults, but you're going to be missing a few inches of knee room that the other competitors have. And now for my favorite part, let's see how it drives. Another way Mazda engineers tried to increase the level of luxury in the car is by reducing ambient noise, road noise, and wind noise. And in fact, they did a lot of changes to the body to do that. Now on a twisty road like this, you won't really notice it too much, just because you're having a lot of fun driving, right? But on the highway, that translates into a lot more calmer ride. Now it's not noiseless, especially on these 19 inch low profile tires, but the noises that do come in the car are much more subdued, and lower in frequency, which doesn't really grate on your ears as much. Another unique attribute about the new six are these seats. Now they've been recontoured, and the feature new material so that little bit denser, and more comfortable. But the profiling of material has been changed so that your pelvis fits into the little nook back here, reducing the need for bolstering. Now on the signature trim car, you still have adjustable lumbar support, and two position driver memory. So you and a co-owner, or a friend, or your partner can share driving duties without messing too much with any of the adjustments. But one thing that will take your mind off of the interior is the drive dynamics. Now the 6 has always been a fairly good handling car, and this new one is no different. In fact, Mazda went through great lengths with the suspension to give it a little more comfort on choppy roads like this, without losing any of its pitch or roll stability. What that means is when you fling it through corners, the car stays flatter, and doesn't rock your head front, back, and side to side. In fact, amongst the midsize sedan segment, Mazda 6 is probably one of the better handling cars out there. But what good is all this suspension if you don't have the power to match with it, right? Well, with this 2.5 liter turbo charged engine, producing three 310 pound feed of torque, and 250 horsepower, the power is there right when you need it. On this twisty road, it doesn't take much to get the car pulled into the corner, in fact. In fact, you have to be careful not to give it too much throttle, and get some torque steer through the wheel. Now torque steer is where one wheel has a little bit more grip than the other, and it will send a little bit of feedback through the wheel to let you know, hey, maybe you need to back off a little bit. Sending the power to the front wheels is this six speed transmission. Now there's paddle shifters so you can shift manually if you'd like, but frankly, it's just fine in automatic. In fact, there's a sport mode, which only works through the transmission, that holds gears longer, and makes down shifts more aggressive. But frankly, even in regular automatic mode, the computer has enough flexibility to make the shifts more aggressive on his own where you might not even use sport mode. Now some of the Mazda 6's competitors have gone to eight and nine speed transmissions, so the Mazda 6 may seem archaic with six speed. But with such broad torque coming from the engine, and good gearing from this gearbox, Mazda didn't feel like they needed to invest in a transmission with even more gears. Now what's the result of that? Well, the car stays in gear longer, so it's not shifting as much. So you get a more consistent pull as you're accelerating down the road. On top of that, when you downshift, it's not downshifting three or four gears. It's usually just one, and it puts it right in the sweet spot for you to have a very strong acceleration coming out of a corner. Frankly, we haven't noticed any issues with it and we think it's a great idea. Not bad. While at the track, the Mazda didn't generate the numbers we felt like it could achieve when we were driving down the road. It accelerated from 0 to 60 MPH in 6.7 seconds. While not absolutely praiseworthy, it's certainly satisfactory as both 0 to 60 and quarter mile times put it right between the base engine and option engine equipped versions of the Camry and Accord. There are steering changes as well. The steering rack is mounted directly to the subframe. No bushings. What that means is you can feel the grain of the road. And we're going over these little ribbons in the road, and I can feel them through the steering wheel. On top of that, the steering rack has been calibrated to give it very good weight and heft. Some people might find it a bit too heavy, but anyone who's driven a sports car will be right at home. How do all these changes translate? Well frankly, wonderfully. The car is uniform through the corners. You can pitch it in hard and the car stays very composed. It doesn't matter if it's small little bumps like what we're feeling now, or larger bumps like that. The car never gets upset. You can drive this car far faster than the speed limit would suggest you can, and have no problems doing it. Now obviously, we suggest you keep with the law, but it's nice to know you can if you needed to. Surprisingly, turning isn't as aggressive as I thought it would be, but that's not such a bad thing. It follows through really well, meaning once I do get the right amount of turn inset, the car doesn't really deviate from that. And I can control it with the throttle and the steering wheel so that I can kind of manage my understeer very well. With the changes to the suspension, the steering rack, the Mazda 6 has nothing to worry about maintaining its position as the sportiest mid-size sedan on the market. Sure, its heavy steering and suspension may draw away some potential buyers. But it's torquey engine, subtle exterior, and stand out interior are more than enough for it to compete against the traditional favorites, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. But what Mazda has done with the signature trim elevates the 6 away from those two into the luxury segment. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. To see more videos like these, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And don't forget, you can always find out more information on our website, Edmunds.com.