When a car is selling well it doesn't make sense to make radical changes. It's much better to make detailed improvements, and spend the money on other areas within the company. Such was the decision made by Mazda for the 2010 midlife makeover of its big selling Mazda6 – Australia's biggest seller with private buyers in its class.
Appearance changes see the Mazda6 get an even bolder frontal look, with a new interpretation of the five-point grille. The headlights and foglights have been rehoused to complement the shape of the new grilles. The headlights on the top line Luxury and Sport are now ‘active’, that is they swivel with movements of the steering to let you see further into bends. At the rear changes are limited to the detailed treatment of taillight design.
Inside, the design is as before, but some of the trim fabric, and the detailed finish on the dash and centre stack have been revised. Again, this changes from model to model. May we suggest a visit to your Mazda dealer to get comprehensive information on the variety of offerings?
Revisions to the 2.5-litre petrol engine mean that it is now happy to run on standard unleaded petrol. The previous iteration needed 95 octane to work at its best.
At this stage only the petrol engine is being imported. The turbo-diesel is coming midway through April, this 2.2-litre engine has received more changes than the petrol unit, specifically to improve pedal response. We have yet to test drive the diesel.
Transmission options remain at six-speed manual and five-speed automatic. The manual has stronger synchromesh on fifth and sixth gear to make for easier changes, otherwise they are as before.
We have driven the new Mazda6 on an extensive program organised by Mazda as part of the press launch. Quite a bit of the drive was on the beautifully scenic roads in the Marysville and Balgownie regions of Victoria. These are the areas where nature and human beings are rapidly recovering from the tragic 2009 bushfires and it's great to see the way Aussies are bouncing back.
On those hilly, winding roads the Mazda performed extremely well, with steering feel and handling almost in the class of German thoroughbreds that cost far more.
However, the paddles on the steering wheel to control manual overrides of the automatic transmission are too close to the wheel and prevent a proper grip, spoiling some of the driving enjoyment on these excellent roads.
Comfort and quietness of the Mazda6 have been slightly improved as part of the midlife makeover and the car makes a good long distance cruiser. We tested a hatchback and a sedan (there's also a station wagon) and found the sedan to be slightly quieter. The hatch can create a slight booming on rough roads.
In a few weeks’ time we will be able to road test the 2010 Mazda6 in our home area and be able to comment on how it feels in the more mundane areas of traffic driving, commuting and shopping – sadly the real background for most drivers in Australia.
By the way, the money saved on unnecessary revisions to the successful Mazda6 has gone into the all-new design of engines and automatic transmissions we detailed a few months ago. We won't go into these in depth here, but Mazda is planning to make its new-generation ‘Sky’ petrol powertrains as much as 30 per cent more economical and cleaner than the already good existing units. Work on these engines and transmissions is well underway but they aren’t expected to be introduced in Japan until late 2011, so are unlikely to be in Australia until 2012.
Despite having already reduced the prices of the Mazda6 range to reflect the reduced import tariffs to Australia that took effect on January 1st this year, Mazda has been able to further trim prices due the increase in value of the Australian dollar over the Japanese yen. The new prices (with the reductions in brackets) are:
Limited 2.5-litre petrol four-door sedan: $27,310 manual ($935)
Limited 2.5-litre petrol four-door sedan: $29,310 automatic ($935)
Classic 2.5-litre petrol four-door sedan: $31,750 manual ($685)
Classic 2.5-litre petrol four-door sedan: $33,750 automatic ($685)
Luxury 2.5-litre petrol four-door sedan: $40,905 automatic ($745)
Classic 2.5-litre petrol five-door hatch: $32,750 manual ($650)
Classic 2.5-litre petrol five-door hatch: $34,750 automatic ($650)
Luxury Sports 2.5-litre petrol five-door hatch: $41,415 manual ($660)
Luxury Sports 2.5-litre petrol five-door hatch: $43,415 automatic ($660)
Sports 2.2-litre turbo-diesel five-door hatch: $42,815 manual ($615)
Classic 2.5-litre petrol five-door wagon: $35,050 automatic ($615)
Touring 2.5-litre petrol five-door wagon: $38,120 automatic (N/A)
Sports 2.2-litre turbo-diesel five-door wagon: $36,250 manual ($530) |
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