Hi All, and Greetings from Germany!
Thanks to all for the Forum contribution so far and for you sharing your CX-60 experiences. It is good to know what other owners experience is, what kind of problems are there with the car and what a fix might be. Especially for a new released car, where you don’t have too much feedback already in the market.
I’ve bought in mid-Dec.22, after a 6 months waiting, a CX-60 PHEV Homura with all extra packs, (looks to be an Oct. built model), as a replacement car for my wife's old Passat Alltrack.
As per the current trend we've took the opportunity to become more greener, and switched from a Diesel to a PHEV. We've also tried a BEV option earlier in 2022 and had a fully electric Volvo XC40 for 5 months - but we've gave it back and ruled BEVs out (at least for the moment). The BEV for us was a rather disappointing experience: huge disappointment in terms of Range (and this was from spring to autumn, so not winter conditions) and for our XC40 in particular also a lot of reliability issues.
We've chosen ultimately a PHEV, maybe as many of you out here, to try to get the better of the 2 worlds: Fully Electric in the city, ICE with E-support on motorways.
We've done some upgrades to the car:
- new Rims + Winter Tires on 255/45/R20, kept the original Homura rims + summer tires for the summer only.
- Mazda Roof Rack to accommodate our Thule box, so expected the consumptions to increase a little.
In a little bit more that 3 months (since car was received) we've done 4500 km, I will say approx. 2500 km a mix of city (with a lot of 20-30 km drives) and motorways (with weekend trips no longer than 100 / 200 km). Plus a bigger trip for the winter holiday (approx. 2000 km round trip).
As with many of you on this Forum, we have noticed similar "set of annoying problems", which we were not expecting for a car in this price range (approx. 65 KEur), which was advertise as a Premium alternative for the big boys: Q5, X3, XC60 and GLC, but at 10-20 KEur less money. So the lower price difference needs to be reflected somewhere, right ?
Need to say here that in general both myself and my wife like the interior and we are pleased, in general, with how the car overall performs (comfort, seats, interior space and trunk, communication and car-used interactions). OK – you are quite not in the same “car” league as above mentioned, but let’s say for 15k EUR less you get a NEW car with 6 year guarantee, 8 years on the battery and previous good Mazda reputation should sign you on.
But there are also issues. I will try to summarize bellow, using a “similar issues” format as some of you before:
1. Electricity / Fuel consumptions:
a. ONLY Petrol consumption – here, tbh it is a little bit as expected (so with NO or very little electrical motor support, basically when battery is depleted), the consumption is something like 8.5 to 9.5 l/100km (no charging). When force charging is used, one can be expecting to add +2L /100km in consumption, for the Battery to recharge. Which we all know is very inefficient and should be used if you need to retain battery for a later city green zone drive.
b. ONLY Electricity - mainly used for city drives (something around 35 KWh – 40 KWh / 100 km consumption). Here we were expecting (maybe wrongly) something like 25-30 KWh, also advertised by Mazda. But as we are in Winter Conditions the car needs a lot of energy, especially for heating. Currently we can drive approx. 35-40 km from an 100% charged battery - at least my wife can – before the ICE kicks in. At this point the Battery still have some reserves (between 18% and 30%) depending on the Outside temperature. I normally drive it a little bit sportier, so I manage to do 30-40 km in this Winter conditions.
On +20 °C I managed to drive even 52 km full electric, but only once.
On -10 °C and below – obviously the electrical range dropped toward 30km.
c. Hybrid Drive – this vary and is quite difficult to understand, actually to correctly quantify - as for us depends a lot of how many times and how much electricity we recharge before we refill once the petrol tank. Generally – during weekdays we drive fully electric and in the weekends, with longer trips, the ICE.
2. Throbbing noise and Vibrations at 45-70 km/h speed:
Unfortunately we have a mixture of both of them. It occurs mainly when the car starts in very cold and cold mornings and is quite annoying for the first 10, 15 KM. It starts at 45km/h increase in intensity towards 55-60 km/h and slowly decrease and disappear above 70 km/h.
The Throbbing is present during this whole above speed interval and the vibrations I feel them mostly in the 45-60km interval.
3. Suspension:
Indeed it is a little bit too stiff, and for couple of times I have experienced (my wife not) some “mild” bouncing / oscillations on the rear suspensions. Nothing to really scare me, but anyway something not expected for such a “Premium car”. I have not experienced the car on bad / very bad roads, hence the rods here in Germany are decent enough. So I don’t know if this will be a road security issue.
4. Jerky movements in the transmission:
Also present. These happened mainly at low speed and lower gears. There are days (especially very cold weather) when I experienced even couple of them almost in a raw, when you are stuck in traffic, traffic lights, etc. And days (warmer days, or afternoons) when beardly feel one. But they are there, on a daily basis!
5. Issues with the DAB not starting, when you re-start the car:
Also present. Initially I thought it is something with the reception in the area where we live. But that was not happening with the Volvo and also with an Audi S6 I had as a company car. So my temp. fix was to manually re-engage it from the Main Menu, and worked. Also read here on the Forum that a switch off and on from the Radio button also works as a temp. fix. MANY THANKS for the tip, have tried this and works too for my car.
6. Doors Closing Sound:
Absolutely horrifying. The worse I’ve heard in any car I drove. Even a smaller Hyundai i20 (which a friend of mine keeps for short city trips) sounds better.
Does anyone – that have opted for the extra insulation – knows if this is cost free / supported by Mazda in Germany OR you need to pay from your own pocket, in case you would like a more “premium” sound for your car’s doors closing? - THANKS for SHARING!
7. Vibrating side mirror:
Didn’t notice any on our car.
8. Wireless Charger:
Seems to work OK with iPhones ( a 14Pro and a XS) although they got quite hot. Hence normally using cable to charge on long trips. On short trips the iPhones are connected to CX-60 Car Play mainly via WiFi (of course works one at the time, but you can have more registered in the car.) Peaty that the Car doesn’t log the correct telephone based on the recognized driver via the driver profile. Sometimes when both of us are traveling together and I drive, my wife’s phone get connected to the CarPlay, and vice-versa. We didn’t figure it out yet how to make the car to match the correct phone with the correct user profile (like XC40 had). But we have the manual choice via the Main Menu. Not optimal but helps.
9. Line / Cruise / Other Systems Assist:
Seems to work but I cannot say that it is working Very Well and that we are pleased. For example - the Line assist - I find it a little bit tricky, as the car tends to slightly ping-pong between the offside lines, rather than keeping the line in the middle. One need constant attention. And I am talking here – driving at 100 – 130 km on motorway. My wife doesn’t like it at all, comparing this to what Volvo and Audi offered here. Hence she is not using it at all in CX60. Audi was like on rail track – even at 200 km/h. Volvo max. speed was only 160 km/h and due to BEV consumptions on motorways was driven at max 120 – 130 km/h, and at this speed was absolutely a delight in assisting. In CX60 I am feeling like, if I leave the steering wheel unattended – even for a fraction of a second, I am gonna end up entering the other lines, bumping the other cars. Don’t know it this is just how Mazda it is, or is something wrong with our car. I intentionally test the car for couple of times - hands free of the steering wheel for 2, 3 seconds (in a “safer” place with no traffic at all around me) and had the nasty surprise that the car in some instances, ended up on the other line. Unacceptable!
10. Refueling with Petrol:
The car supposed to have 50L tank. And it has, but …. when you are refueling – seems to stop at a time when the tank can still accommodate 8 or 9 L petrol. Weird. So basically you have in the tank 40-42 L only. This has never happened to me in any car I drove before (petrol, diesel, PHEV).
I would say that this should not normally be a problem (as I said, during weekdays we drive the cat in the city in full EV mode). But when you drive on motorways, and especially long trips you do not want to add extra stops (if you can accommodate more fuel initially).
In order to fill the whole tank with 50L I need to slowly, but really slowly fill in the additional 8, 9 L, by gently pushing the fuel hose lever at the pump. Which can take another good 5-7 min, with other traffic participants, waiting in line for refueling, looking at you like at a crazy sheep: what is this guy doing ?!?
11. The 12V Battery:
I leaved this at the end as for us this was another nightmare, ruined a whole weekend.
The car is normally driven – almost daily, but we had a week when the car was not driven at all. When we wanted to use the car on a Saturday morning the 12V Battery (or 12V batteries) were complete dead. I needed to use the physical key (inside the remote control there is a key) to manually open the doors. Then had access to open the charger bay and manage to plug it for main battery to be recharged or re-energized via plug-in. After recharging for 1h the main battery I was able to drive in Electric so the car was able to charge a little bit the 12V battery too. Needed to drive for 10km or so until I manage to start the ICE too. Weird. And the car remained with a lot of warnings since. Almost every week now the car gives a 12V warning / or couple of them. I even bought a 12V battery charger and properly charged the battery for 6-7H until fully 100% again 2 weeks ago, hoping that this will fix it. But unfortunately same problem appears again last week. Maybe there is something that is consuming the battery when the car supposed to be OFF, I don’t know. I noticed that if you due a Mazda APP enquiry about the status of your car, the car is woken up (the main driver display is ON with some information).
Currently I have the car scheduled for a check on all issue above at my dealer this week.
So far the Dealer was really nice and, at least on the phone, when we’ve spoked for the appointment and what problems I want him to look for, acknowledged back to me that, indeed they are also disappointed with the multitude of issues that CX60 seems to have. They have a lot of complaints from other Clients too. Even they were expecting a little bit more from Mazda with this car. My dealer is a sole Mazda dealer and not a multi brand dealer.
P.S. I have System Software 14012 installed, don’t know if this one is the latest. The car have asked me (I think end Jan or so) to perform an OTA. Clicked OK, and let the car to perform all the updates. Then the car restart fine, but I cannot say I saw any improvements.
Anyway, many thanks, and see you around.
Will keep you posted on my Service Visit.
