2024 Mazda CX-30 Consumer Reviews
Pricing
Perfect in turbo models despite more money.
My son is a mechanical engineer and was looking for a good peforming small SUV as his first car. I have experience in SCCA racing and have owned high end sports cars. I knew Mazda reputation and siggested he check the CX30 Turbo Premium version out. We were both impressed with the features, power, handling, and the interior. Here in Michigan the AWD is a great feature. While not interested in off road it hasn't failed to impress us and handles snow andice great. The hamdling indeed is very good which I expected We have no regrets and only one gripe. We ate still trying to figure how we can move windshield wiper from normal stop podition to high position. When a wiper stops in down position on a car it often gets trapped by ice and snow. That requires breaking the ice up which takes time. My other cars let me park the wipers in up position.... or I can pull the wipers away from the glass. The CX30 always stores wipers in low position even when turning off at key like other cars I have and you can't pull wipers away from glass as they hit the hood edge. That is my only con though. One big positive is the auto trans is NOT one of those constant velocity types which we hate. We also don't have any issues with the downshift... my Ford Express van is worse in that area.
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Affordable personal sport UV .
A driver’s car, with the comfort and style and tech appointments found on more expensive cars . This is what the Taos should have been.
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- 2.5 S Select Sport 4dr SUVMSRP: $23,99091 mi away
- 2.5 S Select Sport 4dr SUVMSRP: $23,99091 mi away
- 2.5 S Select Sport 4dr SUVMSRP: $23,99091 mi away
More than I Bargained For
I did a lot of researching before purchasing this car but until I actually brought it home, I had no idea the true value of my purchase. My last three cars have been new but modest Honda’s. The last one was a fully loaded 2016 HRV. It was a great car with minimal problems, I had to replace it after colliding with a deer. It had heated seats, lane assist and a sunroof just to name a few upgrades. I expected about the same for the premium non turbo CX30. Boy was I wrong, I’ve had it three weeks and I’m still learning how to use all of the features. Yes, it’s a few thousand dollars more than the premium HRV but you just can’t beat what you get. The ride is so smooth I’m still in Awe. I can’t remember how many cars I’ve bought at this point but by far this is my best purchase to date.
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Excellent For The Money
Great car with good interior and very nice options for the price paid. This is a lease but I will probably buy this at lease end in a year.
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Far more refined than the price would suggest
If you sat in this car, not knowing it was made in Mexico by a non-luxury brand, you would be shocked. The quality in every detail, the tiniest fit and finish consideration, all are outstanding. The soft-touch leather surfaces, substantial-feeling controls, the sleek lines of the minimalist interior are evocative of cars costing thousands more. The ride is comfortable, but not perfect. The steering is on the heavier side and allows you to feel in control (bumps are soaked up well), but it can be a touch noisy. However, that's relative to the class and price tag. It still excels ahead of its peers. Honda and Toyota interiors seem like bleep-bloop toys for college kids, overstuffed with distracting zooming light shows, when compared with the sophistication Mazda achieved at the price point. The Premium trim is loaded with very cool tech. It's not only interesting, but it's also *useful*. None of the bells and whistles feel like cheap gimmicks. The safety features are ingeniously integrated into the driver interface, most appreciably into the HUD projected onto the windshield. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over Mazda's shuttle knob-based Infotainment system, but it took me all of 3 days to run through the entire system without stuttering or stopping to think. It does everything you need and it does it safely with minimal need to take your eyes off the road. The shuttle knob rests precisely where it needs to be, right in your palm. The smaller volume knob next to it so convenient, it's actually easier to use than the steering wheel volume buttons. The CX-30, however, will never get a 5-star rating from me for two reasons. The first is there are no USB ports for rear-seat passengers, and the vehicle has a total of only 2. What's worse, is if you want to use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay (I use Android Auto, and it is a miraculous bit of tech) your phone automatically eats up one of those USB ports. The front passenger and rear passengers are left to fight over the single remaining port. This is a nuisance of gargantuan proportions, having 2 kids, each with their own battery vampire tablets. There are ways around the problem (the car also has a 12V socket). However, there is no excuse for Mazda not to install a pair of USB ports for the rear passengers on the back of the center console... which is ALREADY wired for USB, the interior of the center console is where the USB ports are located. Mazda forces you into a CX-5 to get rear ports, which is just a crappy thing to do. It seems like a minor thing to complain about, but try having 2 kids on a long road trip fighting over a charger. The second complaint is Mazda yanked the upgraded Bose system from the Premium trim and just tossed a $440 credit at buyers. That is irritating, especially when you want to pony up for the Premium trim. I should not have to upgrade to a turbo model, especially when Mazda was capable of offering the stereo in the standard engine trim from the start, and double especially, as the turbo is catering to a different audience. The standard stereo is sufficient, but sounds boxy. I believe Pioneer custom-makes the Mazda Harmonic system speakers. I spent a long time experimenting with the car's exhaustive EQ settings, and ultimately the best setting still sounded boxy (as in, having a somewhat nasal, veiled characteristic - it's not as bad as you may interpreting me, but it's what I hear). That said, it does a nice job. Testing a variety of music, from metal, to new age, Europop, to classical, to rock, everything sounds adequate: not great, but not terrible. The soundstage does sound very wide, which made Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon particularly entertaining to hear, specifically the chimes at the beginning of "Time" and the cha-chings at the beginning of "Money." The audio effects ran free around my ears, ping-ponging with glee, as they were engineered to. Unless you are serious about your music, the standard system will impress you, at most, and be adequate, at least - I can't imagine anyone outright hating. Make sure you take the stereo for a test drive before you decide on the trim you want, if you fancy yourself an audiophile. In sum... extremely well designed, luxurious, and well mannered, and with gobs and gobs of useful tech and safety features. The CX-30 kills everything else in its class, in these categories. The lack of a pair of rear USB ports (when the location they would be placed is already wired for USB), and the unavailability of the premium system in the premium model are big cardinal sins. Big. BIG. Big cardinal sins. But the rest of the car is *that good* that I was able to overlook them. There are battery workarounds for the kids' tablets (but I shouldn't have to bother with workarounds) and once my ears adapted to the base stereo, it wasn't so bad (BTW, for some reason Led Zeppelin sounds perfect in this car, as if the 1990 Jimmy Page remasters were completed inside of this car... go figure). I can't give this car a 5-star just to send Mazda a message, but I still highly recommend the CX-30. The price bump from the Preferred to the Premium trim is very worthwhile, if you can swing it.
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