Everything wrong with Mazda in a single CX-5 SUV press release
If you're shopping for a new car, chances are you're considering a Mazda CX-5 mid-size SUV: a great family hauler. Pity about the press release…
It’s a bit early to call ‘worst press release of 2022’, but Mazda Australia is certainly a contender.
This report is my honest personal opinion, and no reference to individuals is implied. The comment relates solely to general corporate conduct and statements issued by the company in the public domain. So deal with it, corporate lawyers.
Download the updated CX-5 press release here and see for yourself. It’s definitely one of the laziest, I’ve seen in a long time.
There is a whole department inside every carmaker designed solely to deliver disingenuity, as if that’s some kind of contemporary corporate virtue. The communications bullshitters, according to Professor Harry G Frankfurt’s definition.
Mazda Australia’s bullshit is up there with the best, in my opinion. I’m talking, totally first-rate. It’s like the vehicles only exist so that bullshit about them can be lovingly contrived.
Mazda seems to me to be totally divorced from the product it sells, and the regular people who buy their cars, like you. Although, I’m sure they would claim the opposite.
It’s politics-level spin, emanating from deep in the Australian automotive sewer.
Basically, Mazda has just given the CX-5 yet another update (like the 2020 CX5’s lockable all-wheel drive update >>), but on the cheap.
They have done the absolute minimum to constitute a near-death sex-up, and (of course) they’ve increased the price, quietly, by $1100-$1200, across the range, and hoped you won’t notice.
In fact they’ve changed the CX-5 from this:
Well done, “redesigning” and “redefining” your medium SUV. Not even their mother could tell them apart.
Fundamentally, the problem with this kind of self-obsessed marketing is that nobody has ever approached a single Mazda dealership in need of self-expression. People really just want a new car, and they hope like hell they’re buying the right one.
Let’s run a thought experiment on this: When was the last time you woke up thinking about whether your five-seat mid-sized SUV was providing you enough self expression? I suspect at least 90 percent of people would answer: ‘Never’.
Managing directors of Australia’s automotive import operations are of course, in my view, little more than glorified import clerks. So, does what they say actually matter? It depends on what they’re saying - whether they’re being genuine or not. Usually the latter.
It’s a completely double-sided assignment. They are, of course, important in the context of Australian operations, but they’re such a tiny fish, globally. Often, for many brands, the CEO has to endure emailing spreadsheets back to head office and apologising for poor sales.
If I were advising VB, I would suggest that nobody buys a CX-5 because they’re on some quest to express themselves. It’s a glorified family wagon, mate.
And guess what, CX-5 is actually a pretty good SUV. But it does not offer redefinition nor redesign. And it’s absolutely never going to be an untapped well of self-expression.
Do they honestly think the public reads and understands a statement like this?
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When the marketing loses the plot
Let’s see if they’ve done anything meaningful with CX-5 for 2022, which they’re over-hyping beyond words.
It’s gripping stuff, isn’t it? Those black highlights have never been done before.
Also, that’s not a ‘proffer’. A proffer is when you hold something up or offer it for acceptance by another party. You can proffer a glass of wine or a wad of cash. Black highlights are not proffering anything for acceptance by you, or anyone else. Personal opinion.
That’s just epistemically subjective wank, at best. They’re just black highlights, which they added because doing so was cheap.
The best those black bits can aspire to, is to make the new one incrementally classier, as a minor cosmetic tweak.
In fact, this whole extremely minor update comprises a few new lines on the grille, with infantismally different headlamps and tail-lamps, and Akera gets colour-coded plastic flares over the wheel-arches. And leather. These are the cheapest things you can change on an existing model. They require virtually no major investment or major changes to the existing template.
Okay. Cladding cannot imply ‘outdoor spirit’ any more than black highlights can proffer some other ‘self-expression’ quality, metaphorically.
Statistically, nobody buys a mid-spec CX-5 seeking adventure. It’s got a space-saver spare tyre! That’s an adventure-seeking black flag right there, unless limping home hundreds of kays on a space saver appeals to you.
When you think about it, maybe that is adventurous, just not the way Mazda is insinuating. Middle of the night, in the pouring rain, on the freeway.
If you want adventure, just get up a ladder: I have a whole ladder safety report here >>
Don’t worry, there’s more Mazda marketing magic:
Yeah, nothing shouts ‘adventure-seeking utility’ and ‘SUV toughness’ louder than some vomit-green stitching and matching cheap plastic air vent frames.
SUV buyers are drowning in a sea of choice; there are endless alternatives to the CX-5. Yet air vents inspired by Kermit the Frog are not, frankly, all that compelling. That’s up there with Hyundai’s fetish for red seatbelts from a couple of years ago. A ‘what were they thinking?’ design decision.
Of all the possible choices of textured trims Mazda could’ve gone with. Brushed aluminium, woodgrain, carbon fibre, fake carbon fibre, matte black, real leather, fake leather - even making them white to match the exterior might have looked better. Not piano black of course, that’s a Kia Sportage thing.
On the bright side they also said this:
How do you actually “refresh” a transmission? It’s hardly a glass of Veuve Cliquot.
(Also, a sentence 58 words long, is extremely difficult for your audience to read, unless you’re Hemingway.)
The fact here is, there’s actually no new-generation technology at all in that convoluted list of features. They bolstered the seats, braced the unibody, and tweaked the transmission control ECU and the dampers. How is that new technology?
Where they say, “dampening control structure”, I’ll bet nobody with an actual automotive engineering pedigree got to factcheck that rubbish before it was published. Last time I looked, cars have dampers to control body motion. They’re not structures, they’re mechanisms; they’re parts. Dampers can be re-tuned to improve ride, and/or handling and/or refinement. There are no “dampening control structures” in cars.
Graeme Gambold (Kia Australia’s engineering specialist) swaps out a damper during local tuning of new Sportage; not a structure.
The only ‘structure’, per se, is the chassis.
It doesn’t get more out of touch than that. Although Toyota Australia complaining endlessly that local hybrid owners don’t want to plug in, is pretty close.
But at least it is hilarious that Mazda is tacitly admitting the old CX-5 had unsupportive seats, rough acceleration, unpleasant vibrations, excessive road noise and low-quality ride comfort. Well done, demeaning your own product; making recent customers feel hollow about their pride-and-joy CX-5 bought just before Christmas.
CX-5 just got a once-over lightly make-up session, and it’s more expensive now.
It’s a decent mainstream SUV, and the 2.5 turbo is a bit of a cut cat in a straight line. And I think they’ve finally managed to figure out how to prevent the 2.2 diesel from randomly spitting chips.
CX-5 remains a viable mainstream family wagon. Kids to school, mum to the shops, pick up dad in the evening, sport at the weekend, Bunnings, visiting ‘her’ parents. All within CX-5’s remit.
I’d put CX-5 up against Subaru Forester (especially the new version), which has fewer powertrain choices, but symmetrical AWD and a full-sized spare, plus of course Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage in diesel form, which are essentially clones, and they have full-sized spare tyres as well, and the Kia has a seven-year warranty, which is a plus. You might also consider the new Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross plug-in hybrid.
Better customer support culture within Subaru, Hyundai and Kia. The evidence there, apart from the anecdotal stuff is: well, Subaru, Hyundai and Kia have not recently been found guilty in Federal Court of misleading and deceptive conduct - Mazda has.
Frankly, this would weigh on a rational person’s buying decisions, in my opinion. Fines, most likely in the millions, are likely to follow from the Federal Court.
Toyota RAV4 is of course available as a hybrid, where none of the aforementioned SUVs are. But at least Forester, CX-5, Sportage and Tucson are not on a waiting list so long you could make the case that the RAV4 Hybrid not actually on sale, today, as a practical matter. Plus, it is pretty mediocre, like most Toyotas. And they don’t sell the RAV4 Prime here, which is without doubt the best one not actually in the range. Sloppy seconds for us in Australia.
The only thing that would worry me about owning a Mazda is the apparent disconnection between the company and me as the buyer, and between the company and the product it sells. It’s as if these sections of the brand are in three silos, each separated by ego, as well as plaster and concrete, in the office.
This could have spooky side-effects if you have a serious problem with your new Mazda, down the track. It’s certainly something I would consider rationally, before buying one. And it’s a problem Mazda Australia needs to fix, quickly.
Mazda has to stop viewing buyers like you as some kind of marketing abstraction, and remember that you are a real person, out there, with real money, living a real life, on the cusp of doing something a car company executive never does - which is actually buying a car, for transportation. Then, owning it for three-to-five years, and hoping like hell it’s the best one for them, within their budget, and that it’s reliable and well supported.
If you are that consumer, it feels like you’re taking a huge, five-figure risk on a complex machine you’re going to rely on for the next 1800-plus days. These corporate entities struggle to relate to this concept. I suspect this is why they seem so preposterously out of touch with you, in my personal opinion.
Mazda3 should make you reconsider that heavy, impractical SUV or the long list of overpriced prestige German cars. If you’re money smart, you’ll put this sensible, stylish small hatch or sedan on your shortlist for a test drive.