This is the Turbotank, or a 2008 Mazda CX-7 2.3 petrol turbo, which I picked up in August 2021.
In essence, I needed a larger, newer, and slightly more day-to-day/long-trip suitable vehicle than our Mk1 Mazda MX-5, because I often drive a fair distance with some kit - and the MX-5 was booked in for a respray ahead of being passed along to eldest child - by virtue of my job, and some towing capability was a want/need due to... umm, let's call them "reasons". But I don't like boring cars, and I'm a bit of a Mazda bore so really I wanted Mazda.
My list of requirements then was:
Not boring to drive
Not slow
Big enough to take stuff, also tow
Not diesel (see point 1)
Mazda (also see point 1)
With a maximum budget of £3,000, that basically spat out the CX-7.
It's a somewhat complicated vehicle - it's based on the same platform as the first-gen Mazda 3 (similar to, but not the same as, the second-gen) which means it's closely related to the second-gen Ford Focus and Volvo C30. However, as you can see, it's not a wee family hatchback, but a crossover SUV - designed by Moray Callum, if you're interested.
That doesn't exactly tell the entire story though because for the first three model years (2007-2009), Mazda only sold the CX-7 with one powertrain option: a 2.3-litre, turbocharged petrol engine good for 255-263hp (depending on year) and tied to an intelligent all-wheel drive system through a six-speed manual. If that sounds familiar, it's basically the Mazda 6 MPS/Mazdaspeed 6 powertrain... Yeah, it's quick.
Enter problem one: the UK introduced an emissions-based road tax system in 2007, just before Mazda introduced the car to Europe. That means that, despite a single trim level of really rather decent standard (of the day) and really rather good performance, the poor fuel consumption meant very high tax; new owners had to pay an extra £750 for the first year, and £415 a year after that. Oh and that latter value has been rising, so it's now £615 a year.
So... nobody bought them - Mazda sold ~400 a year before replacing it with a dog-slow diesel which also didn't sell - and as they've become more expensive to run, nobody bought them used either. Of those they did sell, poor maintenance (that engine is robust in standard form but runs very hot; if owners don't keep up with maintenance it pops) and the UK's salty roads accounted for about half of them; yeah, only ~600 remain registered in the UK. Also the cream interior version looks great in pictures but is awful in person, which narrowed it down further.
That means there's a lot of bad ones out there, and it took a while to find one; @homeforsummer even went to look at one near him (but a long way from me) for me, which was fine, but the dealers were arseholes. Eventually I did find a private seller with a black one (red is best, but black and blue are both great) with a few battle scars but under 90k miles and he was willing to go snap the underside for me. Mild downside - it was in Reading, which is a 550-mile round trip (half of which on trains).
Remarkably, despite being up for £2,300, the owner agreed on £2,000 flat, and I drove it home. And then it passed its MOT in October without a fuss.
Now... I was fully accepting of the fact it might be a rolling project itself, and it does indeed have foibles. It took a little while for the wee smell to go away (previous owner had a young child; it goes with the territory - at least it's leather in there), and I noticed some pretty unpleasant clouds at high rpm as well as an odd off-throttle thrust to the right. And the bodywork was pretty minging but at least straight and no particular scratches through the paint.
Job one then was an oil/filter change, which cured the clouds. An alignment check (as clued in by the odd wear patterns) revealed what I'd phrase as "hippo's teeth"; that's also got rid of the lurch. By and large though, everything else is a matter of maintenance. The tyres are okay but only technically (enough tread depth on enough of the tyre to be legal) so need replacing and the brakes are getting to be pretty poor; both are in the schedule ahead of its next MOT and before the roads become greasy and cold. It's also had a rust spot (rear wheel arch) removed and a general polish to get rid of the worst.
There's an aftermarket "GT Auto" unit for plugging an iPhone in. I don't have an iPhone, and it's also screwed the radio up. I'm making a plan to replace the entire headunit with a navigation/DAB+ item - which will be handy as it means I won't have to drive in a silence with my phone giving directions to the random places I go. It's not a vital item, but it's on the list... as is a remap, because the fuel economy is dreadful and there's a hole in the torque at about 2,500rpm. I'm cogitating a suspension upgrade as I don't entirely like the noises at low speeds right now, but with ~90k on the clocks it could probably do with a general tightening-up.
It's been making itself at home though with aplomb. Even my wife has been impressed, despite largely wanting nothing to do with it. Thus far it has been pressed into service as an incredible load-lugger; despite being generally rated poorly, this thing just destroys our Suzuki Swace estate for load space (10cm more load length, and over a metre between the arches). Our old Octavia estate, one of the highest rated cars of all for load space, is not its equal.
We've moved cabinets, mattresses, bookshelves, PVC windows, scaffolding, an entire dining table/chair set, and - although it took three trips - a whole kitchen including oven, hob, and dishwasher. In fact the only thing thus far not to fit in was a 2.4-metre sofa (no surprise as there's only 1.8 metres of load length), but it fitted for height and width so I roped it in place with the load eyes.
There's going to be updates to this thread as some of the jobs are coming up real soon... so watch this space!
Had no idea these were so rare in the UK; I've seen maybe a handful and figured it was a slow seller for whatever reason, now I know why. Always thought it was a good looking car though, Mazda had a really good design language during this period.
Had no idea these were so rare in the UK; I've seen maybe a handful and figured it was a slow seller for whatever reason, now I know why. Always thought it was a good looking car though, Mazda had a really good design language during this period.
The facelifted and only diesel ones sold better - despite being 100hp down and having a slightly lower towing capacity - because of a relatively high standard equipment level (for the price) and you didn't have to contend with 24mpg; I get an average of about 27, but so much as look at the throttle and it plummets. But at that point they were three years old and the SUV boom was well and truly on.
Weirdly, the first time I went out for a work errand, I met another one in the B&Q car park nearest me...
We didn't, no. It's possible to get them but they're too pricey and honestly too big - I have no need for seven seats ever - plus the financial penalty for running an import would make it a nonsense. Also was it auto only?
We didn't, no. It's possible to get them but they're too pricey and honestly too big - I have no need for seven seats ever - plus the financial penalty for running an import would make it a nonsense. Also was it auto only?
That's really interesting, we didn't really buy a lot of Madza's back then. We mainly have been dealing with Toyota (Corolla,Camry,Tundra, etc.). We actually got the CX-9 and only drove it for 2-3 years.
Always the same with left-field cars. A small part of the reason why I went for my Up GTI was that I'd honestly only seen maybe two on the road since they first come out, so there was an air of exclusivity about it, at least for where I live.
I've seen five in the past two months of ownership.
Honestly the CX-7 is probably what I was looking for when I recently got an old Rav4 but I favored non-turbo simplicity instead. Plus I kind of forgot the CX-7 existed because I rarely see them anymore, not sure what that's all about. I should take another look next time around.
Honestly the CX-7 is probably what I was looking for when I recently got an old Rav4 but I favored non-turbo simplicity instead. Plus I kind of forgot the CX-7 existed because I rarely see them anymore, not sure what that's all about. I should take another look next time around.
We had a 2009 CX-7 that was the Dark Plum color. Had to trade my '05 Legacy GT in on it because we were having a kid. Had the nice interior with the Suede strip down the middle of the seat. Bose stereo was great. Got rid of it before the Turbo went bad but have not owned a vehicle that wasn't turbo since.
Ironically we now have '21 CX-9 Carbon Edition which I also really like. Just have to hope the turbo lasts!!!
The guy above might be banned now, but Dark Plum sounds like a decent choice when the respray comes round. I'd been considering Infiniti's Malbec Black to keep it original-looking most of the time but purple every now and then
Anyway, when the CX-7's MOT ran out in October I just kind of left it to sit for a while; I wasn't going out on any photo jobs (I think I did two, but handily my wife was off work enough to take her Super Swace), so we just left it on the drive.
That actually gave me a chance to do some of the aforementioned jobs. And also briefly make the car look more rare:
Yep, down to 500 already.
Anyway, I'd obviously noticed the uneven wear pattern as noted before, and though that was fixed by the alignment check I still had to deal with tyres that were quite badly worn in some places. The brakes, towards the end of October, seemed to be close to terrifying; I don't brake a lot, but only one corner (rear-left) appeared to have any kind of normal engagement with a variety of less comfortable operation on the other corners.
I was looking at sourcing a brake upgrade - fancier discs, more aggressive pads - but the rear axle seemed to be permanently out of stock. In fact they still are. As the discs themselves appeared fine, I punted that idea down the road and picked up some ebay special pads; pretty much OEM replacement from Mintex, though it turns out the front pads have been discontinued and the substitute items are from the Ford Edge/Lincoln MDX. These cars both weigh 20% more than my CX-7.
As for tyres, well... I swear by Toyo. Every car I've ever had to replace tyres on has been nicer to drive, quieter, and better in the rain on a set of Toyo Proxes than anything else - quite honestly my old MX-3 was hit and miss on the Pirellis the previous owner (my dad) had splashed out on, but absolutely transformed on Toyo Proxes T1-Rs. Since then I've slapped them on a couple of MX-5s, and a Mondeo ST220 and never been disappointed.
Now, as it turns out, Toyo is also an OE supplier to... Mazda. It wasn't when the CX-7 was made, but you'll find Proxes as standard fit on a lot of Mazda's current range and post-Ford SkyActiv cars. Of course the "Turbotank" isn't a sports car, so no T1-Rs here, and I grabbed a set of Proxes Comfort SUV direct from Toyo Tire UK.
With that all in the garage, I was a bit lazy (also it would have taken me four hours and I'd still have had to pay to get the tyres fitted) and got a local mobile mechanic out to fit everything on the driveway for £notmuch.
Although cosmetic, the car's registration plates were bothering me - and could be an MOT fail technically. Somehow the backing had started to peel off, leaving faded patches in a couple of places, along with the technically illegal CYM country marker (which is legal now but would have not been when it was new). So I picked up a new set from the local motor factor* to stave that off.
Finally it occurred to me that since the first oil change to cure the black smoke issue was so awful - it came out like black, congealed pork fat - that even though only a couple of thousand miles have passed since then it wouldn't exactly be expensive to treat that as a flush and do another oil/filter change. Some idiot (me) also thought, "hey, why not change the spark plugs too in case they're all sooty from the crap oil" and bought four NGK Iridiums for SIXTY ACTUAL POUNDS.
At the garage they confirmed my suspicions that something was a bit wobbly on the NSF, and replaced a track-rod end (which would also be an MOT fail), and then it just flew through the MOT with zero advisories:
That all came just in time for an industry event in Bedfordshire which, handily was the exact same journey I did in the car last year, on the same route, at the same time of day (the middle picture up there, with the two black bags and the wooden TV unit? Same trip).
And the fuel economy improved by ~15%. That's not a typo or a missing decimal point; at a constant 70mph on the cruise - with the occasional drop for roadworks and the odd boot of power for someone being a divot - on the same journey it went from 28.8mpg in 2022 to 32.3mpg in 2023. Moreover, on little fiddly bits in-between - I took a diversion to see my brother on the way home - it's increased from about 26/7mpg everywhere to a real fight to record less than 30mpg everywhere.
Which is good and bad. Firstly, it's amazing what a nice fresh set of decent (Toyo) tyres and fresh oil/filter/plugs will do for a car. However it's also a signal that it could have been looked after a lot better in the past - and poor oil maintenance in particular tends to grenade these engines. There may be some non-ideal explosions in the future.
That aside, it's a pretty tight thing now and the 550-mile round trip was just a breeze. Also the damping compared to modern, comparable SUVs is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. I guess because it's on 18-inch wheels with proper sidewalls.
Still have a few things on the list though. That headunit is appalling and I'm entirely sure the AM radio is goosed because of the aftermarket iPhone jack (and I don't have an iPhone), so once I'm sure of incoming/outgoing funds for the summer it's being ditched for an OEM+-style upgrade - by way of sat-nav/Android Auto/DAB+ unit. The car comes with the Bose audio system as standard, so that should be nice.
Combined with that, I'm looking into doing a OEM+ wireless phone charger pad. This was never offered on the CX-7, so it's a case of finding a decent location (there's two... two and a half possibilities) and wiring an aftermarket unit into the front 12v socket to look like it was always there.
Also the air-conditioning died at some point over the winter. Chances are that's just a re-gas (and a first for me on a car with modern refrigerant!) but then Mazda does like to put vital aircon components in vulnerable locations... The MX-3's compressor has been holed three times, and there's barely any spaces in the nose of those.
I do also have a window glitch, likely caused by hauling the battery off to recondition it over the winter; seems to require a reprogramming sequence on the window switches, so probably not a trauma. It could also do with a damn good valet, as pigeons nest in the tree over the car's parking spot...
Thanks to the boost in economy, the remap can wait; I think it might be a better bet to replace the turbo if it goes pop with the aftermarket hybrid option, then remap. But we'll see...
*This led to a fun conversation with @Jordan as you don't have them in the USA. In essence, UK registration plates can only be supplied by registered suppliers, which include car dealers and specialist "motor factors" - who are basically car parts stores - and the owner has to supply the car's official registration document and driving licence to prove ownership. This is to prevent vehicle identity cloning. They also have to be in a specific font (Charles Wright) since 2001, and at certain character sizes, along with other required legal markings.
Having seen a few new CX5s on the roads recently, I like the design of it, and the Mazda 6 is one of the nicest looking cars on the road today. Mazda is on a design roll just now. I also nearly bought a MK2 MX5 as it was just up the road from me, but I was outbid.
