2025 Mazda CX-50 Turbo: A long test with extra credit

2025 Subaru Forester Touring vs. 2025 Hyundai Tucson Limited vs. 2025 Mazda CX-50 Turbo Meridian Edition: Battle of a few of the many, many small SUV choices.

This week: Mazda CX-50 Turbo

Price: $42,670 as tested. $450 for fancy paint was the only option.

Conventional wisdom: Car and Driver liked the “zesty handling, powerful turbocharged engine option, class-above cabin environs,” but not that “some rivals offer more passenger space, the most desirable trims and features amp up the price, basic standard warranty package.”

Marketer’s pitch: “Refined performance to take you nearly anywhere.”

Reality: A real treat, and we tested it nearly everywhere.

What’s new: The CX-50 gets a larger 10.3-inch touchscreen along with some tech features for 2025.

We put a lot of miles on the CX-50 — first we fetched Sturgis Kid 4.0 from Penn State and then proceeded onto elk country for a look at Pennsylvania’s Deer on Steroids collection. (And even saw some, and heard some more!)

Then because everything is booked in late September — oh, the traffic in the woods! — we stayed waaaaay over there in Ridgway, a nice little burgh. Highly recommend both elk country and Elk County. (They are confusingly not the same.)

Competition: Dodge Hornet, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Subaru Forester, and Toyota RAV4 are just a few of about 15 varieties.

Up to speed: The 2.5-liter turbocharged engine creates 227 horsepower (more if you feed it well). It gets to 60 mph in a quick 6.4 seconds, according to Car and Driver.

The CX-50 had no struggle on some of the tallest mountains in the state. I’d forgotten how high up one gets when leaving pretty Ridgway and heading back toward almost equally pretty Clearfield, having lived in the region in the early ’90s.

Normal mode could sap some of the energy from passing but Sport mode had you covered. But Sport mode left the gear settings very low, and I felt like it would almost never leave fourth gear.

Shifty: The 6-speed shiftable automatic performed well in automatic mode and also while shifting, which cleared up some of the sluggishness of Normal mode. The PRND gearshift is comfortable and the triggers on the steering wheel work just fine. Six gears is pretty old school, but it also allows for simple shifting.

On the road: The small SUV handled its own on all types of roads — straight stretches of Pennsylvania Turnpike, winding highways with smaller hills like 322 west of the Susquehanna, and then real mountains as we climbed and descended the Allegheny Plateau.

Sport could be a bit much for some of the highways, but it was delightful for the winding roads in Clearfield, Cameron, and Elk Counties. Handling was as nice as any Mazda offers. We took “the back roads” where I could recall them — they’re all pretty far back, honestly — and the CX-50 maintained speed and rounded the curves with aplomb.

The CX-50 is not the funnest Mazda I’ve experienced, but it was sure-footed — with one caveat.

In the weather: The rain came down strong on the ride home, and both Sport and Normal modes left me feeling a little nervous. I finally went for Off Road, and there everything was smooth and stable. (All-wheel drive is the only platform for the CX-50, a good choice.)

Down side, the sensors got wet and muddy, so the cruise control shut itself off for a few minutes. There really needs to be a nonadaptive version to default to.

Driver’s Seat: I dreaded a long, long trip in a Mazda seat. Why couldn’t I have a nice cuddly Lexus or something equally cushy?

When I sat down, not only did the seat feel hard, but a seam in the middle made me think “wedgie time.”

But perhaps this was the test I needed. After putting easily 700 miles on the CX-50 in three days, nothing ached, and that’s even having hiked about six miles of steep hills in the middle, along with lots of town-strolling.

Friends and stuff: Sturgis Kid 4.0 pronounced the seat at an odd angle and not adjustable, lacking a good way to get comfortable or stretch out.

The rear seat is fixed in position and the hump is large and console intrusive. But corner spots have good leg-, foot-, and headroom.

Cargo space is 31.4 cubic feet in the back and 56.3 when the rear seat is folded, by far the smallest of the three SUVs in this comparison.

The 3,500-pound towing capacity is by far the largest of the three.

Play some tunes: The Bose 12-speaker audio system in the CX-50 offered delightful playback, definitely an A heading toward an A+. Little adjustment was needed to allow each song to shine through.

The Mazda console-mounted knob-and-button controls remain, thankfully. The screen has touch operation as well, but it’s a little far and unresponsive to be easy to manage.

Keeping warm and cool: Dials adjust the temperature, while horizontally mounted buttons control all the rest. They’re pretty easy to operate once you get your bearings.

Fuel economy: Here’s the price for all that fun — I averaged a solid 20 mpg throughout the trip, with very little deviation.

Where it’s built: Madison, Ala.

How it’s built: Consumer Reports predicts the CX-50 reliability to be a 4 out of 5.

In the end: The CX-50 is the fastest, funnest, and comfiest of the three SUVs tested. And there’s towing capacity as well. It made the trip go down as easy as poutine at our final stop at Harrisburg’s Sturges Speakeasy (no relation), just across from the Capitol. Highly recommend both the CX-50 Turbo and the poutine.