► We live with a Mazda CX-60
► This time we test the mild hybrid
► Read month 1 here
No one likes a nervous passenger. Especially one who keeps telling you to pay attention, grabs the steering wheel, jabs at the brakes, and screams BRAKE for no good reason. The CX-60 is that nervous passenger.
There are times when the CX-60’s numerous safety systems work well – the blind-spot monitoring is useful, as is the warning you get if you’re about to step out of the car into the path of a bin lorry. But so much of its nannying is annoying, verging on dangerous.
On a long drive down to Devon, it would periodically tell me I was distracted when I wasn’t. This warning itself is quite distracting, so in a way I guess it wasn’t wrong. Furthermore, the lane-keep steering-assistance system aggressively yanks the car back into the middle of the lane should you wander slightly. At times, I’d be midway through correcting my path myself, and my efforts would combine with the car’s nervous disposition to send me too far the other way.
This issue worsens on A-roads and smaller lanes, where you can find yourself fighting the CX-60 during completely normal driving; God forbid you try to take the most direct line through a clear kink in the road! It can be switched off by rummaging through the sub-menus but needs redoing at the start of every journey.
On some motorways the car is convinced the speed limit is 30mph. There are also residential streets where it advises me I can do 80mph – not a speed limit anywhere in the UK.
In Ilfracombe, with its narrow, winding, hilly roads, I found myself more at risk of being rear-ended by another vehicle than hitting anything myself, with the CX-60 seeing parked cars on a corner as a serious collision risk before slamming on the brakes suddenly. BRAKE, the car yells at me, while I yell something far less savoury back. If there was a swear jar in the CX I’d be halfway to my dream 997 GT3.
Logbook: Mazda CX-60 Homura e-Skyactiv D MHEV 3.3 (month 2)
Price: £50,705 (£54,357 as tested)
Performance: 3283cc diesel six-cylinder, 251bhp, 7.4sec 0-62mph, 136mph
Efficiency: 53.3mpg (official), 44.0mpg (tested), 138g/km CO2
Energy cost: 15.7p per mile
Miles this month: 855
Total miles: 5251