The Mazda CX-8 I was loaned was in the beautiful deep “Soul Red” colour paint that I love! I was very excited by the outside and my experience of the CX-5 and CX-9, as well as the promise of a seven-seater when I gave this CX-8 the BabyDrive testing!!
The CX-8 we tested was one of the more basic models but I felt it didn't have the little features that made some of the other Mazdas I've driven feel really special, like rear window shades, clever retractable roller blind etc and I felt I missed them!
Storage inside the cabin is rather thoughtful; with good useable sized cup holders in the first, second and third rows, wells in all the door handles and the door bins are large enough for large refillable water bottles.
Mazda has given thought to the positioning of phones and charging for front and rear passengers, with a rubber tray in the central console or a shelf and USBs in the central console storage box and in the rear, and the central armrest has a hidden compartment with two USBs and a tray for charging phones.
The boot was competitively sized, holding seventeen shopping bags when only using five seats, which is the same as the Hyundai Santa Fe and two more than the VW Tiguan Allspace. Depending on the needs of your family, the four sizes of strollers I tested all fitted in the boot with good amounts of shopping bags when only using five seats. You could fit a medium sized dog in the boot with a comfortable amount of room for a few shopping bags beside it.
When using all seven seats, six shopping bags fitted in the boot, which is one more than both the Hyundai Sante Fe and the VW Tiguan Allspace. I could only fit two sizes of stroller in the boot when using all seven seats; the Mountain Buggy Nano and four bags or the Urban Jungle with one!
The CX-8 is a seven-seater with five top tether points. FANTASTIC!! They are all within plastic guides on the seat backs, apart from the central one in the second row which is right underneath the seat and I found I required an extension strap for the child seat.
There are ISOfix points in the two outer second-row seats only and I found there was enough room for me to install three big child seats across the second row while using the ISOfix because there is plenty of space across the second-row seats, which is unusal and great!
In the third row, I installed two big child seats using the seat belts and top tethers, and there was ample room for them. The second row slides to adjust leg room and we found you could have a 184cm passenger sit in front and behind a rear-facing infant capsule. In both positions, there was 25cm of knee room which was impressive! The headroom in the third row was better than in the VW Tiguan Allspace but still only enough for the 184cm passenger to last a 30-minute journey before they wanted more space!
For accessing the third row, the second-row seats slide forward and small kids could perhaps climb through but an adult could not reach through the gap to fasten buckles or bigger kids climb through without removing child seats. The second-row seatbacks are split 60:40 and the 60% is on the kerb side so you actually have to remove two child seats to access the third row from the kerb side of the car which seems biased to left-hand drive countries. I found that the third-row seats are very comfortable to sit in and I'm 162cm.
The CX-8 was simple and practical to drive around town and out on the open roads, I did find visibility out of the rear and side windows very limited because the windows slope up towards the back. I found myself relying on the rear camera which was far too small for a vehicle of this size!
The Mazda CX-8 does not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which I found disappointing, but as I understand all Mazdas will be able to have the added by the end of 2018. The media system seems outdated, and the screen is small. The system is controlled using a joystick in the central console which I just found hard to navigate and use especially while driving as you are never sure if you are supposed to press, turn or nudge the stick for each command!? A lot of the necessary options wouldn’t work while driving, which I found frustrating!
Overall I found the Mazda CX-8 to be a practical family car that is pleasant to drive and the interior feels like good, practical quality apart from the shiny seat upholstery that is more suited to your embarrassing uncle's wedding suit fabric! That's the biggest downside of the vehicle for me! I think the fabric would be hard to clean from ground-in spills and child crumbs too. The CX-8 does have good practical storage and generous boot storage though! The five child seat capacity is FANTASTIC and rarely rivalled but I felt the CX-8 lacked some of the finer family-friendly details and overall polish of the CX-9.
The Mazda CX-8 scored one of ANCAPs highest five-star safety ratings and has six airbags as standard.
BabyDrive Indepth - Storage
The floor of the CX-8 boot is nicely carpeted and even, which is great for an emergency bum change, and the floor level is nice and high so you are not bending down into it. There are indents on either side behind the wheel arches which were useful for separating things into like Tulsi's lunch box for example.
If I could give a prize for the best seatbelt holders, the Mazda CX-8 would win!! The strap and buckle slot separately into holders at the side of the car which stops them sliding out, preventing them getting in your way when loading of the boot or when raising and lowering the third-row seats. It is such a small detail but I found it made a big difference.
There was no cargo blind in the model I drove so I could not test it.
The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.
Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.
I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.
When only using five seats I could fit 17 shopping bags in the boot of the Mazda CX-8.
The Mountain Buggy Duet fitted in both directions, widthways with six shopping bags.
The Britax Flexx tandem stroller fitted in the boot with 10 shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle pram fitted with 10 shopping bags in around it.
The Mountain Buggy Nano stroller fitted upright in the boot of the CX-8, with 15 shopping bags around it.
When using all seven seats, the boot of the CX-8 would hold six shopping bags, which is one more than the Hyundai Santa Fe and VW Tiguan Allspace.
The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle fitted with one shopping bag and one wheel removed.
The Mountain Buggy Nano fitted with four shopping bags.
For storage inside the cabin, in the front of the CX-8, there are two cup holders in the central console, and they were a good size for a travel or disposable coffee cup, or a 600ml water bottle. My large refillable water bottle fitted in there nicely too.
The central console storage box was quite a good size, the bottom is lined and there are two USB, AUX and HDMI sockets in there and the lid doubles as two little armrests.
The door pockets in the front of the CX-8 are nice and large, so they will hold a large refillable water bottle and I found the huge space behind it would hold my wallet or iPad.
The glove box of the CX-8 is rather small. I could just fit my wallet in there with the manual and iPad.
On the side of the central console in the passenger footwell is a 12V socket.
In front of the gear lever is a narrow rubber-lined well that is big enough for a large smartphone.
In the ceiling, there is a glasses case which is felt lined so you don’t damage your lenses and there are lit vanity mirrors in both visors.
The second-row passengers have map pockets on the back of both front seats, which are solid and large enough to completely conceal an iPad. Good for when you park up somewhere.
All the doors have good sized rubber-lined wells in them as handles, which are a great BabyDrive feature as I find them really useful for popping whatever my daughter has in her hands in while I buckle her up, or to put the car keys in.
The door bins in the back would hold a large refillable water bottle and a 600ml fitted as well.
The central seat back has a fold-down armrest containing two cup holders that are a good size like the front ones and there is also a lidded section with two USB sockets to charge and store two mobile phones.
For the third-row passengers, there is a cup holder on both sides with a storage well behind them. They will hold a large refillable water bottle or reusable or disposable coffee cup. I really like the third-row cup holders because when I was only using five seats I could put my take away tea in them while I loaded and unloaded the boot!
BabyDrive Indepth - Noise
The rear parking sensors in the CX-8 can be turned off by pressing the arrow button on the media screen which hides the visual too.
The media screen is VERY small for a vehicle of this size, the system feels outdated and controlling it with the joystick wheel down in the central console is not easy while driving.
The lane departure warning in the Mazda CX-8 can be turned off with a button down by your right knee. The auto engine cut-out switch is on the same control panel and it’s called i-stop in the Mazda CX-8.
I find this function really disturbing for sleeping babies, you have just got your baby to sleep in the car and you stop at lights and the engine turns off sometimes they will stay asleep but when the engine shudders to a start again it shakes baby awake and all your efforts are ruined!! Even coming to a stop at lights with the engine running can be enough to wake a sleeping child so turning the engine off and on again will definitely do it! I have driven routes I know have roundabouts rather than lights just to avoid coming to a stop for any length of time!!
Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!
That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.
If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?
It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?
A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.
Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!
I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.
The indicator volume in the CX-8 is not adjustable, but it is quite a mild sound so I didn’t find it affected my daughter while she was sleeping.
You can change the sat-nav guidance volume but it is not a simple button press on the sat-nav screen, you have to go into two menus in the settings to alter it which is not easily done while driving.
There is no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in the CX-8, although I understand all Mazdas will be able to have both as of the end of 2018. I found the inbuilt sat-nav difficult to navigate and use, but once I could get it going to a location, the directions showed in the head-up display, which was really useful.
I find on most journeys when I use sat nav I only need directions for the last part of the journey. I know how to get to the area I am going and then it’s just the exact address I need help with. Because I need to input the address before I head off I found myself on most occasions when you can’t mute the sat nav voice having to listen to all the directions, which disturbs your concentration, any conversation in the car at the time or more importantly my sleeping baby! So being able to mute the sat nav voice until you reach the part where you actually need it is gold!
Volume settings are remembered so when I muted the radio before turning the car off, it remains muted when I next used the car which is great! There is nothing worse than the stereo blaring out when you turn a car on to wake or disturb a little passenger and a frazzled mum!!
Both the doors and windows of the CX-8 open and close relatively quietly and I didn't find they affected my sleeping passenger. You can come to a stop and leave the engine running and get out of the car without an alarm sounding which is fantastic!
Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!
SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)
Road noise is good in the CX-8, the engine was a little loud because it is a deisel but I didn't find it would disturb passengers.
The seatbelt removal alarm goes off if seatbelts are removed in all rows whilst driving and a lit warning also comes up, on a digital display above the air con controls, with warnings for all three rows of seats.
BabyDrive Indepth - Car Seats
The Mazda CX-8 is a seven-seater with five top tether anchor points!! One in each of the five rear seats which is FANTASTIC!!! In the second row, the two outer seats are within plastic guides and the central one is at the bottom of the seat back, not in a plastic guide.
In the third row, they are within plastic guides and nice and easy to connect to and reach through the boot.
There are ISOfix points in the two outer second-row seats, which are within plastic guides and I found them easy to connect to.
I could fit FIVE big child seats in the Mazda CX-8!! Three across the second-row, using the ISOfix rather than the seatbelts, there was plenty of room for them. I installed the Britax Unity infant capsule and Britax Graphene (I needed an extension strap for this seat), both rear facing in the outer seats and the Britax Kid Guard Pro in the central seat.
In the third row, I installed two large child seats, the Britax Maxi Guard Pro and the Britax Platinum Pro. Both had good space around them.
The headrests are removable in the Mazda CX-8 which is important as I know fixed headrests obstruct fitting of some child seats.
To access the third row you can slide the second-row seats forward, which probably gives you just enough room for a little one to squeeze through the gap but realistically you need to uninstall a child seat and bring the seat back forward in order to climb through and for an adult to reach through and do up the child restraints.
Legroom is really good in the CX-8 and I found that with a rear-facing Britax Graphene seat installed in the second-row outer seat, a 184cm passenger had a decent 25cm of knee room both sitting in front and in the third row behind it too! The headroom in the third row did make it a little uncomfortable for the 184cm passenger after about a 30-minute journey but would be fine for the school run or if most of your trips are just around town.
Posting bub into their seats from outside the car is okay; I did find swinging a toddler into a forward facing seat that the top of the door frame felt quite low and there were a few donked heads!
From inside you don’t have this problem and I found it fine getting bub in and out of the child seats.
Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!
With only one child seat installed in the second row, there is plenty of room for feeding bub in the back.
All the seats are upholstered in their central panels with a shiny suit like material which I just found awful, it had that effect of nails down a blackboard on me when I touched it! It made the whole car interior feel budget and it would make it very hard to keep them clean with children’s mess, sand, spills and crumbs too.
BabyDrive Indepth - Drive & Comfort
The seats throughout the Mazda CX-8 are very comfortable, the front ones are manually adjusted with levers on the sides of them.
The second-row seats are well padded and comfy too, even the central second-row seat back is not too hard but you do have to straddle the hump in the central footwell. The second-row seats slide on a 60:40 split to enable you to distribute legroom.
The third-row seats are surprisingly comfortable, the seat bases are longer than in the VW Tiguan Allspace and there is more kick room under the second-row seats. Headroom is good up until about 180cm. Legroom is great in the CX-8 and we found a 184cm passenger could sit in the front and third row seats with a rear-facing Britax Graphene child seat installed in the second-row.
I found I could not wear a ponytail while driving because of the headrest shape!
I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!
The steering wheel is fully adjustable in/out and up/down. The cruise control buttons are on the right-hand side of the steering wheel. They are simple to use and the cruise control has actually been relatively accurate and kept to the set speeds quite well on both fast, straight roads and on slower undulating roads. It is not as accurate as some I have driven, going about 4/5kmph either side of the set speed but definitely not the worst!
The digital display in front of the steering wheel shows the distance to empty for the fuel, which I find fantastic and wouldn’t want to be without!
The distance to empty display becomes extra important as a mum because getting fuel with a baby is a whole new world of difficult. If they are screaming in the car you definitely do not want your journey prolonged with a fuel stop! If they are asleep the turning off of the engine, doors opening and locking and unlocking, then re-opening the doors and closing, starting the engine again, beepers going off because you haven’t got your seatbelt on when you start the car or because you blink in the wrong direction, do you take them out of the car when you go in to pay? If you do will you get them back in the seat again or will they have a complete meltdown and you’ll be stuck on the fuel station forecourt with a screaming baby!! Hopefully you are starting to gather the anxiety that what was once a simple fuel stop can be for a mum!!!!
For this reason the distance to empty display can let you know if you have enough fuel to make it home with bub and then go out and get fuel another time when you will not have to take bub with you.
There are four identically sized air-con vents across the front dashboard; two in the centre and one at either end.
For the second-row passengers, there are two in the back of the central console storage box and controls, that are reachable by the driver too.
The air-con controls are situated near the bottom of the dashboard just above the gear lever. I found the controls over-complicated to look at and use while driving, I could control the rear aircon from the front which was a great feature. I felt the layout of the buttons was a bit of a jumble and not laid out in the most user-friendly way. There are dual climate control CX-8 we tested, too.
The air con is quite effective in the CX-8, but I found that even on the lowest fan speed it seemed a little harsh and I felt like I needed an extra lower fan setting so as not to feel like I was being frozen when the airflow was on me. People in the third row have no vents of their own either.
Visibility for the driver in the CX-8 was really impaired on both sides by the windows that seem to slope up along the sides of the car towards the back.
With child seats installed in all three rear seats, visibility out of the rear window is very limited so you need to rely on the reversing camera which I found far too small for a car of this size. The sloping up windows also affect visibility for rear forward facing and especially rear facing to see out while driving along.
One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread when we get big cars as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, the Mazda CX-8 was tricky to reverse park because of the lack of visibility!
In the front, both passengers have lit vanity mirrors in their sun visors. The visors are not extendable though.
The interior lights in the front are press on lights in the ceiling. The two second-row lights are also pressed on and situated in the central ceiling. I couldn't reach them while driving, unfortunately.
I have found Tulsi does not like travelling in the dark in the car so if it gets dark whilst travelling then I reach back and turn the interior light on for her. So it’s really important for me that I can reach the rear ceiling light.
Also if I am traveling home and it is getting near to bed time and I DEFINITELY DON’T want her to fall asleep in the car as even a 5minute nap in the car means bed time is all over!!!! I lean back and pop the light on so it’s not dark and try to keep her awake!! Along with screaming/singing at the top of my voice!!!
It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.
I have found the CX-8 is great to drive, it is a long car and reminds me of the Subaru Outback actually, in its aesthetics and feel to drive.
There are handles above the second-row doors which are well positioned to hang a child's toy from.
There are 12V sockets in all three rows.
On the whole, the interior of the Mazda CX-8 is quite pleasant, there is a brown coloured leather like upholstery used in some areas of the interior which do add contrast but also don't tie with anything else in the car. The seat upholstery fabric I find awful and there is upholstery fabric on the door panels rather than leather or plastic which would make them harder to wipe clean. The interior feels practical and neat, but perhaps a little more to a price point and less polished than the CX-9.
There are carpet floor mats in the front and back of the CX-8.
The CX-8 we drove does not have keyless entry and a powered tailgate is not powered.
BabyDrive Indepth - Safety
The Mazda CX-8 was given a five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2018 and one of the first cars tested with ANCAPs new child occupant protection testing. In testing, it scored very highly indeed, getting 87% for child occupancy protection (42.66 out of 49), 96% for adult occupancy protection (36.68 out of 38), 73% for safety assist technology (9.56 out of 12) and 72% for pedestrian protection (34.83 out of 42).
This new ANCAP testing chart shows which types of child restraint are allowed to be installed in each seating position.
The Mazda CX-8 has six airbags as standard. Both front passengers get front and side airbags and side curtain airbags extend to the second-row and third-row passengers as well.
As standard, the Mazda CX-8 comes with seatbelt reminders for all three row of seats, anti-lock brakes (ABS), autonomous emergency braking (AEB), adaptive cruise control (ACC), active bonnet, adaptive headlights, automatic emergency call (eCall), automatic headlights and automatic high beam, blind spot monitoring (BSM), electronic brake force distribution (EBD), electronic stability control (ESC), emergency brake assist (EBA), emergency stop signal (ESS), fatigue reminder, forward collision warning, hill launch assist, lane departure warning (LDW), lane keep assist (LKA), rear cross traffic alert (RCTA), reversing collision avoidance and auto brake, roll stability system, speed assistance auto and manual speed limiter and speed sign recognition and warning and trailer stability control.
Love this car. Beautiful to drive. Nice and quiet inside when driving. Plenty of features for my family but we are simple and dont require a lot just a car. We find the opposite about the fabric that it’s great for wiping of spills and vacuuming even though we didn’t get fabric protection so that’s a bonus. Not overly concerned about the look or feel of the fabric but as I have said we aren’t overly picky so haven’t noticed an issue. And much better than other cars we have owned to clean. Love the boot storage but lacking glove box storage. Not an issue if you like things neat and tidy though. The size is good for me as I didn’t want to be driving a overly big car in the city, shopping centre or school car park that’s very narrow. Still plenty of room in the third row. Fits all our large car seats. Overall I’m extemely happy with this car.
Would you choose a CX-8 or a CX-9 for a family with 4 kids?
I would personally choose the CX-9 because of the excellent third-row access. You don’t want to be taking child seats in and out every day! 🙂
Can you fit three forward facing car seats in the second row?
I would also very much like to know this. Has anyone tried it before? If so, what types of seats did you use?
We recently got an Infasecure Attain More, Achieve More and Aspire More across the Mazda CX-5 which is the same width as the CX-8
I have tried two forward facing seats and a capsule in the second row. It does not fit in a manner where you can use the booster seat belt effectively.