Mazda CX-60 – Goodbye

So, farewell, then, Mazda CX-80; it has, largely, been a slice. Flouncing about a in car powered by a 3.3 litre straight-six diesel engine might not exactly seem the most eco-weeny way forward at the moment. But, put in the context of Mazda’s ‘multi-solution approach’ to sustainable mobility – the right solution at the right time – it does make a deal of sense…

These days, arguments for and against diesel are batted two and fro with even greater vim than that hapless ping-pong ball on the grainy black-and-white screen of the world’s first video game. Truth is, however, that uptake from the oily end of the forecourt remains largely dependent on the price of the vehicle and the cost of fuel. And diesel’s losing out to petrol on both counts at the moment.

The there’s the issue of such a large engine… Well, which would you rather drive with: a diminutive powerplant that only returns its quoted mpg figures if you never, ever touch the throttle, and drinks like Oliver Reed on a chat show if you do; or a bigger, more laid-back engine that gives you all the performance you’ll ask of it without ever getting shouty, or any thirstier than its quoted fuel consumption figures suggest?

We’re a family of lead-foots at ff-C Towers, yet the 1882kg CX-60 has consistently returned over 46mpg under our tenure – a figure I guarantee would not be matched by a sub-2.0 litre, four-cylinder unit permanently yelling its head off to provide the overtalking oomph we have consistently asked of (and rewarded by) the CX-60.

Lob into this equation a classy, beautifully screwed together cabin that’s entirely comfortable, and a rotary dial-controlled infotainment system that’s a doddle to live with, and the only real blot on the landscape should have been a ride quality slightly more fidgety than the kid at the back of the class with his hand in the air who’s about to have an accident and needs to leave room right now…

Even the tough love of the suspension we became acclimatised to eventually though. Unlike the constant bonging of a warning message telling us that the 12v battery level was low and needed charging, Every. Single. Time. we opened the car door. Worse, not only would it not shut up until the engine was started, it picked up where it left off when the engine was switched off to boot.

So utterly dotty did this drive us that I booked the car into the Mazda dealership in Oxford to establish why even a 300 mile round trip didn’t charge the battery sufficiently to shut the thing up. Given the unbelievable state of traffic clog that the council has managed to get the roads in and around Oxford into in its efforts to rid the city of cars (and even its inhabitants the right to drive theirs from one city area to the next), it’s amazing that the CX-60’s battery had not fully recharged itself by the time I reach the dealership…

But no. Turns out the car needed a couple of software upgrades, so I left it with them overnight and bumbled off in a courtesy car. ‘We would normally charge the battery overnight’ they told me as I collected the car the next day, suggesting this hadn’t actually happened. Sure enough, I opened the door to the relentless bonging of the toddler who’s just discovered their favourite note on the piano.

Indeed, the software updates didn’t seem to have any lasting effect at all… Occasionally thereafter a particularly long journey might (or might not) result in a bong-free entry, or exit, from the car. So stunned were we to open the driver’s door to silence that we found ourselves checking the number plate to make sure we were, in fact, trying to drive off in the correct CX-60.

OK; it’s only a small glitch in the grand scheme of things. But imagine if, every time you met anyone, rather than shaking hands, they began poking you in a pectoral until you asked them to stop. You’d not become a party animal anytime soon…

It’s a pity, then, that this idiotic intrusion came to be so much more significant for us than the CX-60’s unruly suspension. But that’s the significance of living with a car for six months rather than the test driver’s usual six hours; it’s the little stuff that makes all the difference.