2017 Mazda CX-5 vs Nissan X-TRAIL

What's the difference?

The new CX-5 has certainly picked up where the old one left off, and is better in every way. The new diesel is a cracker and the safety package belongs on a much more expensive car. 

Mazda has lead the way for so long and the CX-5 was such an accomplished car, a face-lift barely seemed necessary. While it's not all-new from the ground up, this is the kind of thing Mazda has taken to doing really well - every time we drive a freshened-up machine, it's those little details that add up to the feeling a lot of work has gone on to build on a solid base.

And with this diesel engine, the big wheels and those sharp looks, the CX-5 has something for pretty much everyone.

The X-Trail is definitely aimed at those looking for a bit of comfort with a few luxury touches. It's got a bright and breezy cabin, meaning everyone gets a good view, and while there's nothing outstanding about its on-road manners, it does most things quite well.

If you can endure the transmission - and many can - the X-Trail will please with its relaxed demeanour. And compared to its Japanese and Korean competition, it will hit the muddy ruts with confidence.

If the first CX-5 impressed with its understated good looks, the new one goes further by being a very pretty car. Mazda's 'Kodo' design language looks good at just about any size, but this latest evolution puts the CX-5 in genuinely beautiful territory.

The slimmer headlights work well with a longer-looking nose and a body that looks more pulled down over the wheels. Despite bearing more than a passing resemblance to the old car, all the panels are new and that's partly because a shift of the A-pillars of just 35mm was enough to make everything move.

The cabin has come in for a much bigger change. There wasn't a great deal wrong with the old one, but it was feeling a bit old, and some of the materials weren't quite there. As ever, the CX-5's first generation launched into a completely different, rather more sparse segment. With competition from all sides, the new interior had to deliver a more premium feel.

With improved plastics and fittings, a more cohesive design (something simple like consistent fonts go a long, long way to giving that impression) and the sort of detail improvements I've come to expect from Mazda, the new interior is lighter, feels better, and looks better. Job done.

Having said all of that, I can't really recommend the white leather. It looked pretty good with the red exterior and well-judged interior materials, but it's unlikely kids will be kind to it.

The 2017 X-Trail doesn't look a whole lot different to the 2016 model, but that's no bad thing. Trainspotters will notice the new corporate grille, new tail-lights and new wheel designs, but the changes are minimal.

It's a fine-looking thing, though, just not in the way a Mazda CX-5 is. It's more functional than fashionable.

Never a class-leader in the spaciousness department, this CX-5 is still at the rear of the pack, but it hardly seems to matter. Boot space is up by 39 litres to 442 (VDA) with the seats up, tripling to 1342 litres with the seats down. The seatback is split 40/20/40 and you can drop each section individually, which is unusually generous.

The CX-5 has four cupholders (a pair up front and a pair in the rear centre armrest), a tray for your phone, bottle holders in each door and vents for the rear seat. Courtesy of a new higher centre console, the storage bin is deeper and also hides two USB ports.

The new car isn't any bigger, so the rear door aperture is still on the tight side compared to, say, Volkswagen's Tiguan or Hyundai's Tucson. It doesn't seem to bother owners I've spoken to, but it's worth noting. 

Once you're in, there is plenty of leg and headroom for rear passengers, providing the driver or front passenger isn't a Canadian Redwood.

Ha-yuge. Front-seat dwellers have a huge amount of space, an impression reinforced by the panoramic sunroof. You'll find a pair of cupholders crammed into a busy centre console, but they're too small to fit one of those massive 7-Eleven cups, which might not be a bad thing. Each of the four doors has a bottle holder.

Backseat passengers luxuriate in an extraordinary amount of space, with a huge amount of legroom, possibly shading the CR-V's backseat for space. The second row sits on sliders, too, so you can shift it forward or backward to prioritise room in the boot or the backseat.

The boot offers up a minimum 565 litres, though that number can rise to a suspiciously low 945 litres. It looks bigger than that to my eyes, though, and I suspect that number might be a little conservative.

Sitting at the top of the petrol-powered range, the Ti ships with 19-inch alloys, an eight-speaker stereo with DAB+, USB and Bluetooth, sat nav, dual-zone climate control, around-view camera, reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, keyless entry and start, active cruise control, electric front seats, LED active headlights, electric tailgate, power everything, panoramic sunroof, tinted windows and space saver spare.

It seems like everything is heated, from the front and rear seats to the steering wheel and mirrors. But certainly not hot is the software running the 7.0-inch touchscreen. The hardware is perfectly fine but the interface is decidedly amateurish, doubling down by going without Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The only factory option is premium paint for $495, which you'll be asked to pay for four of the seven available colours. 

The 2.2-litre 'SkyActiv' diesel is the only turbo in the range, for now at least. Developing 129kW and a very decent 420Nm, it has a portly 1744kg to move. Power reaches the road through all four wheels via a traditional six-speed automatic.

The diesel is also fitted with technology to reduce the clatter reaching the cabin, start-stop tech and Mazda's 'G-Vectoring Control'.

Towing capacity is rated at 1800kg for braked trailers and 750kg unbraked.

The Ti is powered by Nissan's 2.5-litre, four-cylinder unit, which is a welcome step up from the 2.0-litre engine in the cheaper models. Power is rated at 126kW and 226Nm and is delivered to either the front wheels or to all four wheels (as in our test vehicle) via a CVT transmission. The figures don't look massive, but neither is the X-Trail's weight at 1562kg.

As it's an all-wheel drive, you'll also get hill-descent control and what Nissan calls Intelligent 4x4, a system that lets you select two- or four-wheel drive on the fly, and there's a centre diff lock should you want to hit the loose stuff.

Unbraked the X-Trail can tow 750kg, and the petrol version will drag a 1500kg trailer with brakes (diesel-powered machines can tow an extra 150kg).

The sticker on the windscreen reckons you'll get 6.0L/100km on the combined cycle while exhaling 158g/km of CO2. With a 58-litre tank, that suggests a range just short of 1000km. And you know what? You might be able to do that if you don't spend too much time in traffic.

Mazda's 'i-stop' technology meant that over three weeks, we averaged 7.8L/100km in mostly urban and suburban driving. While that's a bit above the combined figure, it's not far off the urban number, 7.0L/100km.

The official combined cycle figure for our X-Trail is 8.3L/100km, but I couldn't better 12.3L/100km in mostly suburban driving - although I did notice a drop in consumption when I switched to two-wheel drive.

The CX-5 has always been at or near the top of the medium SUV heap when it comes to the drive. The same couldn't be said for overall refinement. The old car suffered quite a bit from a classic (and fading) Mazda fault - cabin noise. The front suspension was the worst offender, with every bump, thunk and pop reaching your ears, along with tyre roar. 

It wasn't insurmountable - you could just turn up the stereo - but around town you got used to a cacophony of noise.

The new CX-5 - as with most major updates - has changed all that. While the underbits have barely changed (testament to the popularity of the car and the quality of its fundamentals), every spare gap has been filled with noise deadening materials, there's more carpet and just more stuff to reduce the racket. While it's not exactly silent, it's not far off the Tiguan, which is arguably the class benchmark.

As before, it's a lovely thing to drive. Easy-going but accurate steering, a firm but compliant ride (this car is not intended for off-roading) and a responsive transmission all combine to make life very relaxed behind the wheel.

The star of this car is the 2.2 diesel. Quiet, smooth and distinctly un-diesel in its aural character (inside at least), it makes the CX-5 a proper all-rounder. It cruises at speed in sixth, overtakes with just a little bit of toe pressure and is quite frugal, coming reasonably close to matching its claimed figures. Around town there is little lag to deal with and the power comes on nice and smooth.

The only complaint we had was that the blind spot monitor is perhaps a little over-enthusiastic, seemingly beeping every time we used the indicator to change lanes.

Let's get the worst bit out of the way; that transmission. Nissan's CVT is shared across its SUV family and it seems more at home in the smaller Qashqai, which has a smaller engine delivering less torque.

The bigger X-Trail serves up a very different experience, though, and one in which the CVT flares and surges, is indecisive and isn't especially quiet. Cars this size and with a bit of torque tend to drive a lot smoother with a conventional automatic transmission.

Now I've got that off my chest, it's all good news from here. The X-Trail is an otherwise fine machine; quiet in the cruise, smooth, and powerful enough that you could cheerfully hit the road a five-person family and their gear without the car breaking a sweat.

It sits high on the road, which bodes well for the off-road capability (210mm if you're keen) while maintaining reasonable body control. The ride quality is excellent across most sealed surfaces, and the worst you'll get from a bad road is a light thunk over bigger bumps. 

The five-star ANCAP safety rating comes from six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward collision warning with forward AEB, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.

There are three top tethers and two ISOFIX points.

Mazda's three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty is part of the CX-5 package, along with capped price servicing. Roadside assist is offered at $68.10 per year.

Your dealer will expect to see you every six months or 10,000km and will charge you between $317 on three of the five scheduled services, $387 for the second and $359 for the fourth. Extra items include $69 for the cabin air filter (every 40,000km) and $64 for brake fluid every 40,000km or two years.

The X-Trail is offered with a three-year/100,000km warranty and roadside assistance is included for the same period.

The Nissan demands a service every 12 months or 10,000km, and prices are capped for the first 12 services or 120,000km, maxing out at $429 each.