Photography Credit: Tom Suddard
Wanna ride shotgun with the GRM crew?
Welcome to this week’s test vehicle, a 2024 Mazda CX-90 Turbo S Premium Plus.
The Turbo S Premium Plus is the top trim for the inline-six-powered CX-90, with a four-cylinder, plug-in hybrid also available.
Output is rated at 340 horsepower and 369 lb.-ft. of torque, but only if you opt for premium gas. Reach for regular, and horsepower drops to 319, with peak torque coming later in the power band (2000 rpm for premium, 3500 for regular).
Is it wrong that as soon as I looked outside and saw the "Inline 6" badge, my first thought was "That's a really fancy crate to ship my next Miata engine in."
So I opened the hood, but sadly couldn't see anything. I'll have to pull some plastic covers off later and investigate further.
As the current owner of a 2019 CX-9, I'm very interested in hearing your driving impressions.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I'm not going to be able to get this running in a Miata right away, so be patient.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
Oh, right, you meant the SUV. Sure, I'll drive it and report back.
Swmbo has made recent mention of wanting to go to "midsized". How does this compare to the rx y'all just had in terms of room?
I drove this around a little bit last night. Haven't investigated storage space yet, but it drives well--like, I'm pretty thrilled to have a big inline 6 in a car. It makes good noises, plenty of power, and is a pretty competent daily. There's a weird whining noise, almost like it's supercharged, but it might just be low on power steering fluid or something, too.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
We got the Preffered Plus CX-90 coming from a Carbon CX-9, and well the wheel sizes are different, went from 20" to 18" and definitely the handling is not the same between the two. Interestingly enough the CX-9 being a bit smaller and FWD bias is the much better driving vehicle of the two. The increased space in the front, gets much smaller in the middle. The captain chairs in the CX-9 had more space in between, or it could be the CX-90 has these large seats.
Also, the CX-9 Front seats were much more comfortable and the vehicle itself looked much better than the new one. The CX-90 with the lesser tune is fine, and glad it can finally tow a Miata, so Mazda can finally tow a Mazda comfortably, but overall driving experience and looks, the CX-9 is the better vehicle.
Yard work sucked up any time to take it for a test drive today, but I moved it around the driveway. Initial impressions: touch points feel rather high end.
More to come.
Perhaps the biggest thing here: the north-south orientation of the engine, just like a “traditional” luxury SUV.
Can Mazda really compete in that realm? Even if the vehicle is amazing, does Mazda have the same cache as BMW, Benz, Audi, etc.?
In reply to David S. Wallens :
We bought one and I'm really looking forward to hearing your experiences with it just for comparison.
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