Mazda CX-80 Review & Prices

The Mazda CX-80 is a seven-seat SUV that majors on style, space and driving enjoyment, even if it is a touch compromised in terms of comfort as a result. It’s a bit like a pair of workwear trousers – loads of pockets for all your things, but you wouldn’t wear them to relax on a long-haul flight.

There are plenty of other seven-seaters vying for your cash alongside this stylish Mazda, such as the Hyundai Santa Fe (Carwow’s 2025 Car of the Year, no less), Skoda Kodiaq, Kia Sorento and Peugeot 5008.

All of those alternatives are handsome in their own way, but the Mazda CX-80 has the classiest design of the lot, at least. The Santa Fe is probably the most striking of the bunch, but where that’s all blocky and ultra-modern, the CX-80 has a more sleek, curvy appearance. It’s a big seven-seater but it’s not too bulky and has subtle details, yet it’s no less imposing than those other cars on the road.

It’s lovely inside, too. You get a bank of physical buttons on the dashboard that should look dated, but they’re really cleanly implemented, while the infotainment screen is nestled neatly into the multi-layered dashboard – it all looks very deliberate and thoughtful, rather than a competition to see who can get the biggest screen possible into a car.

Yes, you can find some cheap, scratchy plastics lower down in the cabin, but everything you see and touch looks and feels as posh as you’d expect of a car at this price. The fabric dashboard trim is a lovely touch, and you can specify light-coloured upholstery on the Takumi trim if it’s all a bit dark for your taste as standard.

Perhaps more importantly for a family car, the CX-80 is really spacious inside. The first two rows have loads of headroom and legroom, and you can swap the three-seat bench in the middle row for two individual chairs for even more space.

It’s not such good news in the third row, which should be limited to kids and/or adults you don’t like very much. Boot space is decent, with 687 litres if you fold the third row – that will be more than enough for most families, but the Skoda Kodiaq and Peugeot 5008 have bigger boots in every seat configuration.

Both of those cars are more comfortable out on the open road, too. For a car that looks and feels like it should be luxurious and refined to drive, the CX-80 disappoints – you crash through bumps in the road, and jiggle about over poor road surfaces like you’re in a sports car. That gets old quickly around town, and while it’s a bit better at motorway speeds, there’s quite a lot of tyre roar. The diesel is fantastic here, though.

The trade-off for comfort is that the CX-80 is surprisingly adept at tackling a twisty road, where the steering – which is unnaturally heavy at low speeds – suddenly feels perfectly weighted to judge your way around a bend. Impressive, just not necessarily what you need from a seven-seat family car.

There’s a lot to like about the Mazda CX-80 – it looks great inside and out, and has a roomy interior that’s useful for family life. However, alternatives such as the Hyundai Santa Fe, Peugeot 5008 and Skoda Kodiaq are better all-rounders.

Still, if you’re after a handsome family car that can put a smile on your face on your favourite B-road, check out the latest Mazda CX-80 deals on Carwow. You can also browse other used Mazdas from our network of trusted dealers. Carwow can help you sell your current car, too.

Mazda CX-80 prices range from around £50,000 to £60,000, depending which trim and engine combination you go for. That puts it at the higher end of alternatives, though its design does give it a slightly more upmarket appeal that you might find justifies this.

Still, the reality is that there are some very good seven-seat SUVs available for less cash – the Peugeot 5008 and Skoda Kodiaq both start at less than £40,000, while the Kia Sorento starts at just more than that. The Hyundai Santa Fe, Carwow’s Car of the Year for 2025, is also a bit more affordable than the Mazda.

Impressively capable on a twisty road, but the way the Mazda CX-80 crashes into bumps gets annoying fast

In town

If you’re looking for a seven-seat SUV, you’re probably looking for a car that’s big and spacious, but also excellent around town, because it’s likely to be employed for the school run or weekly shop duties on regular occasions. Unfortunately this is actually where the Mazda CX-80 is least comfortable.

For a start, you feel every lump, bump and pothole in the road. You’ll have to learn to tune out the regular thwack that comes from even relatively small road imperfections, because it gets annoying pretty quickly.

The steering is quite heavy, which is noticeable at manoeuvring speeds, while over-the-shoulder visibility is only so-so.

The plug-in hybrid is the pick of the pair of engines here, as it will offer the lowest running costs if you can keep the batteries charged, but it’s not the slickest unit. Switching between electric and petrol power isn’t particularly smooth, and it’s easy to catch the system out – it almost seems surprised when you accelerate hard enough to require the petrol engine to kick in.

On the motorway

Things improve once you’re up to motorway speeds, and it’s here that the diesel engine really comes into its own. It pulls hard, so whether you’re accelerating up a slip road or need to pull off a swift overtake, there’s loads of grunt on hand to get the job done. It sounds pretty good, too.

You don’t notice the suspension issues as much at higher speeds, though expansion joints are perhaps a bit more obvious than is ideal. There’s a bit too much tyre noise creeping into the cabin, too. The Peugeot 5008 is certainly more refined at a cruise.

Cruise control comes as standard, though you need to go for a top-spec model to get the adaptive system, which can maintain your speed and distance to the car in front.

On a twisty road

In everyday driving, the Mazda CX-80 is a bit disappointing, but point it down your favourite country road and it comes alive. The steering is beautifully judged so it’s easy to place the car on the road, and the stiff suspension helps because the body doesn’t roll too much, so you have confidence to carry more speed than you’d expect from an SUV of this size.

Only you know whether this is something you actually want from your seven-seat family SUV, but if you want a family car that can put a smile on your face when you take the scenic route back from the school run, the Mazda CX-80 does not disappoint.

Spacious cabin and a well-thought out boot, but alternatives offer more boot capacity

There’s loads of space for those in the front to get comfortable, and there’s plenty of shoulder room between passengers. Decent steering wheel and seat adjustment means you should be able to find a good driving position too.

Interior storage is good, with big door bins, a full size glovebox, two cup holders and a wide if slightly shallow area beneath the armrest. The Hyundai Santa Fe is better, but that's an outlier - the Mazda still has above-average storage compared with most alternatives.

Space in the back seats

Middle row space is excellent too. You get loads of legroom and headroom, so your passengers won’t grumble on a long drive. There’s also a choice of swapping the seven-seat configuration for a six-seat layout, which replaces the middle bench for two separate chairs, making things even more roomy.

The third row is less impressive, because not only is access pretty tight, there’s very little legroom and the floor is high, so your knees are bunched up and there’s no thigh support. It’ll be fine for young children on short journeys, but that’s about it.

Fitting a child seat is easy, because the two ISOFIX mounting points on the outer middle row seats are clearly visible, though they use clip-on covers that are easy to lose. The doors are large and open really wide, so you have loads of space to negotiate seating a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Boot space

With the third row in place, boot space is pretty poor – at 258 litres it’s some way behind the Skoda Kodiaq (340 litres) and Peugeot 5008 (348 litres), though it should be fine for a small shop or some school sports equipment. It’s also a bit bigger than the Kia Sorento’s 179 litres.

Fold the third row and you get a much better space – at 687 litres there’s loads of room for the average family’s needs, and the space has been thought out well, with neat features such as a specific place under the floor for the parcel shelf and a three-pin plug socket (on hybrid models).

Yes, the Skoda Kodiaq (845 litres), Kia Sorento (813 litres) and cavernous Peugeot 5008 (916 litres) offer more luggage capacity with the third row folded flat, but the Mazda’s boot is hardly small.

Classy, elegant design and quality materials, but it doesn’t feel quite as high-tech as alternatives

The Mazda CX-80’s cabin is actually a breath of fresh air, because while most modern interiors look like the result of a battle to see who can fit the most screen real estate into a car, Mazda has gone for a much simpler, arguably old-fashioned approach.

There is a widescreen display that’s integrated neatly into the dashboard, which is big enough to display all the information you need clearly without being so huge it could double as a cinema screen.

And while most other manufacturers are routing all functions through the touchscreen, which is sometimes frustrating and occasionally feels genuinely dangerous, Mazda has gone the opposite route.

Not only do you get a bank of neat physical buttons for the climate controls, you also get a rotary dial to control the infotainment. This is much easier than touch on the move, and in fact the touchscreen is disabled while you’re driving, which makes it much safer.

The touchscreen is also just out of arm’s reach, which feels unnatural at first, but once you recalibrate your brain to just use the rotary dial, it makes a lot of sense.

As a result, it doesn’t feel quite as high-tech as some alternatives, but you quickly realise you’re not actually missing anything and not having screens in your face 24/7 is actually welcome.

The dashboard design is really classy, with flowing lines and a multi-layered look with different materials on each surface. The cloth option is particularly cool, and you can choose between light and dark upholstery depending on your preference.

There are two engine choices – a diesel or a plug-in hybrid that uses a petrol engine paired with an electric motor.

The plug-in hybrid feels like the more attractive option, because it’s actually cheaper than the diesel and if you can keep the batteries topped up you should see much lower running costs too.

If you do keep the battery charged, you get about 30-35 miles of electric range, which makes the CX-80 more quiet and refined driving around town – though an equivalent Peugeot 5008 or Hyundai Santa Fe will go further on a charge.

The diesel – a 3.3-litre straight-six-cylinder engine – is actually the better of the two to drive, because the hybrid system can be easily confused when switching between petrol and electric power. And because the electric range isn’t fantastic, fuel economy isn’t as impressive as it could be out in the real world.

True, the diesel is a bit noisier around town, but it’s much more pleasant at higher speeds and offers impressive fuel economy on a long run, measuring 49.7mpg in official tests.

If you’re considering the Mazda CX-80 as a company car, the plug-in hybrid’s lower emissions make it more tax-friendly than the diesel. However, the 5008 and Santa Fe’s longer electric range means they fall into a lower bracket, so are more affordable again than the Mazda. For private buyers, the hybrid falls into one of the lowest Vehicle Excise Duty bands for the first-year, but even the diesel isn’t particularly expensive, though all models are subject to the expensive car levy in years two to six.

The Mazda CX-80 has been given the full five stars in Euro NCAP safety testing. The adult occupant rating of 92% is particularly impressive, though 88% for child occupant safety is also decent.

Standard safety equipment includes pre-crash braking assistance, a warning for traffic passing in front of the car, and basic cruise control. Top-spec trims get adaptive cruise control and a 360-degree monitor with a see-through view mode so you can see what’s beneath the car, as well as a towing monitor.

Mazda has an excellent reputation for reliability, and finished 7th place out of 32 manufacturers in the Driver Power satisfaction survey, so it’s safe to say you’d be in for a good ownership experience.

You get a three-year/60,000-mile warranty, though this can be upgraded at extra cost. That’s about industry-standard, though the Hyundai Santa Fe gets five years/100,000 miles of cover.