The day’s going to come when you have to leave your low, impractical, sports car of questionable provenance at home. It’s actually my job to do just that. I leave my cheap, crappy sports car at home and drive cars for a living, but your life will eventually make you drive something more reasonable, too. Kids, the weather, a hardware store run, or other will eventually force your hand, and the fun car will have to stay in the garage, or be sold outright. The Mazda CX-30 makes that feel like a little less of a blow.
The CX-30 has some trade-offs
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Not unlike that sporty car, the CX-30 does ask you to make some compromises. First, this is not a tech-forward vehicle. Competitors like the Kia Seltos and Chevrolet Trax are both similarly sized and priced in line with the CX-30, but each features more tech-forward features than the Mazda. This crossover barely has CarPlay, and it’s in fact the only way to use the center screen as a touchscreen. Otherwise, you’ll be resorting to the center console-housed wheel.
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To be clear, this may not be a drawback for some. To the technophobe, this is a benefit. You’ll never use the screen for anything but phone projection, scarcely interacting with it. The center gauge cluster offers minimal customization, displaying only fuel economy and the status of the car’s few driver aids, all of which can be turned off with a button. There are plenty of those, with a nice, physical control for nearly every function in the car.
You’ll also compromise on cargo capacity. The CX-30 is decidedly un-boxy, and you pay for that in the ability to haul both people and things. The former will suffer from smaller-than-average back seats, and the latter means just 20 cubic feet of cargo space. In contrast, the Seltos offers 27 cubic feet behind the rear seats alone.
Finally, you must compromise on choice. Sure, Mazda offers two powertrains: a naturally-aspirated 2.5-liter four-cylinder making 191 horsepower, but as you’ll find out below, the Mazda drives so nice the 250-horsepower turbocharged 2.5-liter is basically a necessity, raising the effective price of entry well past the CX-30’s MSRP to $34,410. At least all-wheel drive is standard.
The CX-30’s driving experience is the point
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Your reward for spending way more money on a CX-30 than you would its competitors is the way it drives. Someone, somewhere, decided they wanted to care about how this car drives in spite of the fact that most buyers, rightfully, don’t care. Most people just want a car to get them to work every day. But Mazda does care, and you’ll be given an experience worthy of the price tag as a result.
You do have to compromise a little bit on ride quality. The CX-30 feels stiffer than rivals, which, of course, should be no issue to the ex-sports car driver behind the wheel. For the rest of the crowd, it does come with a benefit: the SUV corners extremely well for its size and height, and it’s very easy to see how the people who make the Miata also make this.
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The CX-30’s only weakness from a driver’s perspective is its 6-speed automatic. A little ponderous at times, it’s clearly geared towards comfort and fuel economy. Thankfully, Mazda has included a Sport mode and a manual shifting option for the transmission, which helps to liven things up considerably. It’s a bummer that there are no paddles, but changing gears via the center stick is still entertaining enough to liven up your commute.
This is a crossover that’s actually fun to drive. The CX-30’s engineers paid attention to how the steering feels, kept the all-wheel drive system nice and neutral, and allowed the otherwise quiet interior to be occasionally penetrated by a pleasant growl from the powertrain.
Verdict: A cheap(ish) crossover can be a nice place to spend time
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Aire Edition models are the cheapest way into the turbocharged powertrain that makes this whole equation worth it, but Mazda throws in a few luxuries, too. These seats add a nice bit of texture and visual intrigue to the car, as does the faux-suede dash wrap and contrast stitching on the (presumably faux) leather dash centerpiece. Aire models also receive some black badging and exterior elements, which doesn’t really do much for the SUV’s already subdued looks.
More than that, the quality of the CX-30’s interior spaces is well above that of rivals like the Trax and Seltos, the former especially. The CX-30’s interior feels a bit tighter, but it offers more center console storage space and room in the door pockets over the Trax. Everything feels nice to touch, too, which is a rarity at this price point. Its sound system is also nicer than rivals, offering more clarity and depth compared to something as basic and flat as those from Chevrolet.
The CX-30 manages to offer the discerning car person something to care about in the small crossover segment that isn’t just an off-road take on an existing model, like the Crosstrek Wilderness. Instead, if you like driving, Mazda gives you an alternative. Sure, it’s more expensive, but you also benefit tremendously from the extra several thousand dollars the brand asks.
