Autocar - First for car news and reviews

Looking at the CX-7’s size and name, you would be forgiven for thinking you’d find a third row of seating lurking in the boot. You won’t. So with just five seats to fit into a bodyshell 4675mm long and with an accommodating 2750mm wheelbase, the CX-7 should offer reasonable cabin space, and it does.

There’s space for most shapes both up front and in the back, our only space-related criticism being that if the driver has his chair set to its lowest position there is little foot space f...Read the full article

 Looks pretty good, and is certainly quick. But to me it just sounds like they've made a decent compromise of a car ; it's doesn't handle as well as an estate because it's on stilts, it can't be taken off road because...well it just can't, and it's not a 'real' MPV 'cos it only has 5 seats with 'reasonable' space.

Err...so you buy this, why? 

Although Mazda suggests not to take the CX-7 offroad I suspect it'd be no worse off-road than most other soft-roaders such as the CR-V or RAV4. 

Sure, the Freelander has off-road cred, but I don't think there's many buyers who're buying Freelanders so they can go seriously offroad.  Most people buy soft-roaders because of the look, driving position and so on, and because they like the notion that they can deal with a wet field or a slippery boat ramp.  And I'd be sure the CX-7 will cope with that just fine.

Looks pretty good compared to the rest. The light coloured interior is a no no for people with kids, lets hope it comes with darker shades to chose from.

No diesel - I would think UK sales would be minimal until that's introduced. Nice looker though.

I don't get it.

What's the demographic of the target customer?

I know.....

Stupid with big pockets?

 I'm about to have my CX-7 delivered from the USA - a two year-old mint example with 24k miles on the clock, for roughly two fifths of the price of a new one in Europe. I look forward to driving it and I will surely post my first impressions on this forum. By the way, are there any CX-7 drivers on this forum to share their experiences with their cars?

Hi JackB, I have just joined the CX-7 drivers experience and love it! It looks like nothing else on the road, the car gets admiring looks from people who wonder what it is, the cabin quality, fit and finish is first class, the performance 'suprising!', the handling superb and very secure, the driving position slightly above other 'ordinary' cars, and the fuel consumption......shocking! It is going for an LPG conversion next week, so I will lose a little boot space, but what the heck, at 50 pence a litre I plan to enjoy the Mazda Zoom Zoom experience!!

 Good on you, certainly look cheap now in used market. Ceratinly well up my list for my next car. Hope the LPG conversion makes it even more fun.

Well, I have the CX-7 back after the LPG conversion, and all seems to be working well! It still uses some petrol in certain conditions, as it is direct petrol injection, and it needs the petrol to cool the injector tips in pre-determined conditions. The man who programmed the system certainly knows his stuff, but said that this is the first CX-7 that he has done! I have used 2 tank-fulls of LPG so far, so it is early days, but so far so good! I have lost about 4 inches of height in the boot, due to me specifying an 82 litre tank in order to get a decent range between fill-ups, but as there was a good boot anyway, it is no great loss. I have also fited the space-saver spare wheel vertically in the boot rather than using the foam that seems popular these days. It is only a 155 section tyre, so only a little more boot space is lost, but I prefer to have the option of fitting the wheel if a tyre gets damaged.

 I don't use the car daily, so with the mileage I do, it will take a while to recover the cost, but I recon it will break-even after some 10,000 miles due to the savings on fuel costs, and the performance seems to be pretty much as before, with no noticable penalty in drivability. I am glad that I decided to buy the car, and am really enjoying the driving experience! I nearly bought another RAV4, but the side opening rear door used to drive me mad! The CX-7 is so much more enjoyable all round!

Hi, just joined the club and purchased a cx7 at the weekend. Very intrested to hear how the LPG is working out. I thought you lost approx 25% power with lpg.

Hi fozzy15, may I offer a belated 'Welcome' to the exclusive CX-7 ownership experience!! 

I have been enjoying the reduced running costs of my LPG conversion, but suffered slightly due to the very flimsy connections onto the Mazda engine ECU, which did produce a sudden misfire after covering about 1000 miles since the conversion. The conversion installer was able to fix the problem within a short time, but otherwise the job has been a great success and costs me around 12 pence a mile depending on how I drive!

The only real criticism I can find with the car is the dreadful fuel consumption when you start to make use of the amazing performance, with very low 20's (or worse!) being quite common! This is not a real problem when using the car on LPG, as the cost per mile is still on a par with that of a much slower and more noisy diesel equivelent, and the performance is still electrifying!

 I recommend using an experienced LPG installer for the conversion, and highlight to them that the ECU connection needs to be handled with EXTREME CARE!  This plug needs to be removed to connect the gas ECU wires for the sensors, so there is no alternative but to disturb it. As long as great care is taken not to damage the pins, there should be no reason to expect any future problems.

To those who have not experienced the CX-7, I can only suggest that you take one for a test drive, as it is a very confidence inspiring car, and the Autocar road test summary states that it is 'The most dynamic SUV this side of a Porsche Cayenne'! Admittedly it also states that it is 'Fast and thirsty' which I can vouch for, but I still manage around 300 miles between LPG top-ups....around £36 a go....so pretty cheap motoring really for what you get. I mentioned about the petrol injectors needing to have some petrol through them to cool them in extreme conditions, and that it runs only on petrol when starting and warming the engine, which means that you need to keep some petrol in the tank too, but I have used only around £40 worth in 2000 miles, which can't be sniffed at!