Justin, do you have a contact at Mazda corporate?

I'd like these software updates...
...more distance to a car ahead when using the radar cruise control. I do not feel that the system allows me to set the distance as far back as I'd like. I would like a max of a 3 second following distance, and 2 seconds seems to be all I can get.
...choice of a longer duration vibration when I veer out of my lane.
...much better nav system that picks better routing.

Both of these safety items can be the driver's choice, adjustable as the driver likes.

Yes, great car. Fun to drive. Comfortable. Let's work together to get it closer to perfect.

Justin, can you keep in touch here and let us know when accessories become available? I'm waiting on all weather floor mats, splash guards (mud flaps), hitch & electrical kit, maybe roof rack.

Yep, soul red is spectacular. We're averaging 25+ mpg in mixed driving.

 

Hey!

I don't have a direct contact other than our local reps, but I don't believe that would get us anywhere. The radar cruise has been out for a few years on the Mazda6 and Mazda3. My CX-5 dealer cars all had it and I believe they're the same settings.

As for the accessories-- I personally am a fan of the all-weather floor mats. They're showing up in our systems internally, but they won't be able to be ordered until August time frame we were told by our Mazda rep.

As for other accessories, I just added crossbars to mine today. Pretty simple but the design of the cross bars to install is actually pretty terrible. You have to have tiny hands and the tool they give you can only be turned one quarter turn at a time, so it became very frustrating. Pretty simple accessory to add for only $200 and install it yourself.

Other than that, I was looking today and only saw the emergency kit, mud flaps, all weather floor mats, crossbars for the roof racks are the only things announced and/or released at this time. I didn't even check to see if they could be ordered but I'm confirming you can the cross bars.

I was also entertaining adding the Mazda Mobile Start to it as well. A little less expensive than the tradition remote start with a fob, but it can be done on the smart phone which is pretty convenient.

I find the distances are actually pretty safe. I wish there were a way to actually make the system a little less aggressive I guess. When you merge out from behind someone it really gives it gas. And sometimes the recognizing what you're doing it'll brake because you're approaching the distance of the car in front of you, even though you're merging. I don't think this is a CX-9 issue because my CX-5 did the same thing. But I understand that it's only designed to recognize a distance and a number.

 

Mazda has certainly done an excellent job. I feel people who buys the big luxury names are doing it for the name and they can afford it. With this vehicle and what it offers, there should be no reason why you spend more to get the same on a BMW or a Lexus. The quality and performance of the Mazda is certainly of high standards.

I feel those that do not purchase a Mazda, truly didn't drive the vehicles and spend time researching just how much appreciation for vehicle engineering they put into their product.

I fully stand behind Mazda. I love my CX-9 and have been in love with the passion they have for their vehicles.

 

I find it crazy that you think that isn't much of a discount off MSRP. These vehicles are worth every penny. You practically paid what the dealer did to buy the car from Mazda... what more would you expect?

 

Just picked up my GT last night. Love it! I do have to spend some time playing with the features like lane keeping. I found this morning when I intentionally crossed the center line that I got the vibration warning but if I stayed where I was, the lane departure indicators in the HUD disappeared and that seemed like it? Yes, I have the "correction" option turned on.

And yes, I miss the seat-bottom tilt that my 2006 Mazda 6 had. *ducks*

 

Titanium Grand Touring.

 

I'm ordering a Signature in White tomorrow morning. We test drove a Grand Touring but a Mazda rep was on hand training the sales reps and had a Signature there for training. Seeing this was for my wife I let her do all the driving on the first test drive. We had it loaded with 7 passengers including ourselves. Me and the wife, our two kids(12 and 14 so older 'kids'), and my daughter's friend plus the sales rep. I liked testing this way to ensure it could move its own weight and an extra 700 lbs or so.

First let me say we've been waiting a while to test drive this. Last September we test drove the rest of the SUV crew within the 40 - 50K range...Pilot, Highlander, Explorer, Durango and MDX. We did't just look at them we test drove them all. We ruled out the Pilot and Highlander. Nothing wrong with either one of them, its just neither felt special in any way and if they were the only choices we'd probably decide to just keep driving our 2006 Ford Explorer which still looks and drives great(we've just had it for 10 years and looking for something with modern tech and just something different). We drove a Durango Citidel V8 and was really disappointed with the response of the HEMI V8. Looking back this might have been one with the longer final drive ratio which helps mileage but takes away from acceleration. We drove an Explorer Sport and for sure my wife liked the feel of it. Tighter than the others and the twin turbo six had a much more flexible power band than the NA V6's in all the others or the V8 in the Durango. We liked the way the MDX felt as well but wasn't overly happy with the interior, specifically the crazy busy center stack. Reminded us of a Ford Fiesta or Focus and just seemed out of place in a 'near luxury' vehicle. We also didn't care for the 9 speed transmission. If you test drive on roads you are familiar with and we have lots of hills we travel you do come to realize just how often this thing has to shift..as smooth as it is, it's shifting a lot. Still this was one of two on the short list to drive again along with the Explorer, but we decided to wait another half year or so after seeing some photos of the new CX-9.

I'll give Kudos to Mazda for truth in advertising. The CX-9 doesn't offer the most utility, nor does it offer the most tech or amenities. In fact there are some glaring omissions that almost makes me pause and say "wait for 2017 updates, like a heated steering wheel, but Mazda's slogan of "driving matters" is pretty spot on. I don't care what the 0 - 60 time is on this SUV. If I want 0 - 60 I take my Chrysler 300 SRT8 out to the drag strip. Where this SUV excels is shooting around town just like their engineering guru Dave Coleman speaks about. The motor is much more gratifying for the typical daily grind we use our SUV for than any of the NA V6s in the other SUVs. It might not win a full throttle drag strip with every gear red lining but I'd bet money its more responsive from 20-40 or 40-60 and in top gear acceleration(without downshifting) than any of the NA V6's. It just doesn't have to shift as much as the others to be in the sweet spot of its torque band. The steering and overall handling feel is also in its own league compared to the others. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but lets face it, if something legitimately looks great, it looks great to most people and to our eye this is the best looking SUV you can buy fully loaded in this price range. The only other SUVs we considered as good looking would be the Jaguar F-Pace(but no 3rd row) and the Volvo XC90 Inscription, which I looked at but decided not drive. If I wanted it outfitted similarly to the CX-9 I would have been looking at 60K+ . I would also say the interior looks just as sharp as the exterior. It looks like the interior you would expect of an optioned up Mercedes or BMW...not base models, but fully optioned models. The base you get in the "luxury" brands are pretty bland.

So essentially the way it looks and drives outweighed for us the fact its interior space is less than most, and its missing a few things we'd like(like a heated steering wheel or cooled seats) but being honest to ourselves the only time we ever fully load our Explorer is the annual camping trip and in recent years we started to pull a utility trailer because we overloaded the Explorer as well for this once a year trip. So we will pull the utility trailer with the Mazda as well and not worry about an extra 5-10 cu. feet of storage.

Negatives: there are some. Living in MA. I come to really like the heating steering wheel in my Chrysler 300, my wife likes it as well. We also like the cooled seats in my car, and with the leather interior in the CX-9 this would have been nice, especially since its offered in most of the fully loaded versions of competitors. There is one thing people should know and this was something we thought was really odd. If you are a shorter driver like we are(5' 4") and pull the seat forward and raise it up quite a bit, you need to be really careful not to hit your head getting in and out of the vehicle. My wife hit her head and I nearly hit mine. We're hoping after ownership we will get use to it enough that we will duck our way around it by habit. I attribute this issue to the aggressive slope to the front window. Yah we are short but we didn't have this issue in anything else we've test drove. I'll give props to Ford, even our 2006 Explorer had power peddles so you didn't have to bring the seat so far forward. The other great feature on the Ford is when you remove the key from the ignition it automatically makes the seat go back and down to make it easy to get out and in. Once you put your key into the ignition the seat moves back to wherever you prior had it adjusted to. The new Explorer's do this as well..although none of the others mentioned do. So if you are a shorter driver you might want to be aware of this. We're also not a fan of a 'subscription app' for remote start. Really ? I have to pay $65 year to make sure my remote start works ? Volvo does this as well. It's a trend I'm not liking.

It seems like this is the SUV if your not just looking for a Utility Vehicle to go from point A to B. The other vehicles should just be called UV for Utility Vehicles, while the CX-9 is deserving of the SUV moniker, it does feel sportier, deserving of ths S in SUV both in look and the way it drives. Sorry for the long rant, I guess I was bored

R.

 

We had this same problem with our new CX9 and found that we could adjust the bass on the Bose system and now it is great. We love it. I think you just have to mess with the settings to get it where you like it.

 

We purchased the 2016 CX9 Touring package and found one that had a lot of extra add ons that almost brought it up to a Grand Touring package and we paid the same. We paid $ 39K. We purchase the one in Pearl White due to some of the heat we get in our area. Black leather seats though. We absolutely love this car. We used to have a small Mazda 3 sedan that was an absolute workhorse for 10 years and we are devout Mazda fans (after attending those Mazda racing experience events years ago). Anyway, we test drove a lot of the other similar SUV's in the price range and this one just blew us away. We knew immediately. It really does feel great, drives great, excellent "pick up" and acceleration. We love everything about it except for one thing....WE ARE NOT HAPPY WITH MAZDA NOT ALLOWING US TO TURN OFF THE SPEED RESTRICTIONS FOR USING THE INFOTAINMENT CENTER. If I want my passenger to be able to mess with the radio, or mess with navigation, etc. while driving I SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE THAT DECISION MYSELF. This is a departure from Mazda's heritage of Zoom Zoom and "Driving Matters" credo. I realize that it's a lawsuit thing, but there are legal ways to protect yourself from users and Mazda should have given us all that option. Oh well, pretty soon Hillary will be doing the same with the country anyway... Mommy state is coming!


We've already started looking into ways to hack this and apparently it is possible. Other than that, great vehicle.

 

I turned the bass down to the -4 setting, but on some pieces of music I'd like more good bass. Think of a piece of music where you can hear the individual plucks of the strings of a string bass. You should be able to hear the vibrations of the string as it plays that note at about 30 hz. Or individual strikes of the lowest keys of a piano, again the vibrations of the strings at about 30 hz. That's clean, accurate bass music, not the muddy booming of our Bose system. Many good examples here: try about 3:30 among others...
I agree with Jeff's comments about the speed restrictions on the nav and settings systems. The system knows when to activate the passenger air bag when a passenger sits in that seat, and it should also activate the infotainment functions at the same time.