2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV Yearlong Review Verdict: Here’s Why It Falls Short

It was with high hopes and heavy doses of nostalgia that I took over stewardship of our long-term 2024 Mazda CX-90 plug-in hybrid for a year. Having owned a 2004 Mazda 6, a 2008 Mazda 5, and a 2012 Mazda 3 in the past, I was a fan of the company’s products. So I was excited when our seven-passenger CX-90 SUV arrived from its cross-country trek to spend the bulk of its year operating out of our Detroit-area office.

First impressions were good: Our 2025 Mazda CX-90 Premium Plus plug-in hybrid with standard all-wheel drive is a real looker in deep blue crystal mica paint with a white Nappa leather interior, plus a rear spoiler and 21-inch alloy wheels.

This trim level has a lot of amenities: three-zone automatic climate control, second-row window sunshades, air-conditioning vents for all, and six USB ports spread throughout the cabin. The seats are extremely comfortable with good support, even on long stints. They are also heated for the first two rows, as is the steering wheel. Premium interior materials include chrome, blond-grained wood trim, and copper accents. Augmenting the comfort level is a digital instrument display option that does not bombard you with too much information.

While not class-leading, the Mazda CX-90 has plenty of room for gear. For example, we crossed the country with a full cargo area’s worth of photo equipment. It also took families skiing and made numerous trips to cabins and enabled multiple family vacations, confirming its utility. The interior held up better than expected with few signs of wear and tear a year later, impressive for white upholstery. Only a few faint rattles developed as time passed, none of which we could trace to anything in particular.

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Joy to Drive?

We put almost 25,000 miles on our CX-90 three-row SUV. Mazdas have a reputation as driver’s cars, and this one lived up to that billing in sweeping curves. The 2.5-liter I-4 and permanent-magnet electric motor push out a combined 323 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque, ample figures for everything we asked of it—including the ability to tow 3,500 pounds. Our official MotorTrend performance testing resulted in a 0–60-mph time of 6.3 seconds, an entirely reasonable and relatively quick result.

But it was far from perfect. The CX-90 made its debut with a new architecture and powertrains, always a concern and one that proved warranted, affecting the kind of everyday driving most of us generally do.

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Transmission Woes

Mazda developed an eight-speed automatic transmission in-house that eschews the conventional torque converter for a multiplate wet-clutch setup for greater efficiency by offering more direct transfer of power from the engine to the driven wheels. The result, Mazda admits, can be “increased powertrain feedback.” That is putting it mildly. We experienced slight lurches during shifting, especially in electric modes, when the CX-90 can shudder, hesitate, and make a hard and abrupt shift. The stutter usually occurred after a full stop and at slow speeds. It is most noticeable during the transition from EV to hybrid operation when the powertrain is more likely to stumble. It seems to cut electric power then suddenly feed in the gas engine with too much torque. This doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it can be jarring enough to make daily driving unpleasant.

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Steering and Lane Keep Assists Hurt More Than Help

Long highway slogs are common for most drivers, and here, the crossover SUV does not shine. The culprit: The steering and lane keep assist are more hinderance than help. The steering is inexplicably heavy, which is uncharacteristic of Mazda and its traditionally light and precise controls. It’s especially egregious in parking lots and becomes downright tiring on a long trip.

The steering wonkiness is exacerbated by the bizarre lane keep assist, which sort of “locks” the steering at its dead center position. When you try to make a minor correction, you must overcome some sticky resistance, and then the assist system cuts out abruptly, causing you to make too big of a steering input. Then you repeat the whole thing in the opposite direction. As a result, you have to make constant steering corrections because of the lane keep system. Most of us found this aggressive to the point where we had to turn it off to stay centered. Meanwhile, drifting too close to lane lines triggers warning beeps and messages to take a break from behind the wheel. The issue is exacerbated in snowy and icy conditions, where the jerkiness and inability to easily hold a straight line feels sketchy, to say the least.

However, we certainly appreciated the standard all-wheel drive when roads took on a layer of icy mush, as the system quickly adapts to low-traction situations. But the sad reality is our editors often disabled many of the safety features—lane keep assist, lane departure warning, and emergency road departure warning. 

We appreciated that the CX-90 comes with a spare tire, which proved vital during a cross-country trip after a puncture in the middle of nowhere on a snowy road. Finding a replacement for the low-profile 21-inch Falken Ziex all-season tire, designed specifically for this model, was much more difficult. And getting rid of the tire pressure warning required a trip to the dealer.

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Is the CX-90 a Good Plug-in Hybrid?

The Mazda CX-90 plug-in hybrid provides up to 26 miles of all-electric driving range with a full charge. During a Michigan winter, that full charge yielded as few as 14 miles. Such a scant return made it feel more like a bother than a benefit to charge the SUV daily, and there are no guarantees the gas engine won’t kick in to assist when it shouldn’t be needed, or to heat a cold cabin.

Recalls Piled Up

We also faced a growing list of recalls over the course of the year. They ran the gamut from a groaning noise in the front end to numerous software fixes to repair camera displays, prevent the engine or electric motor from shutting down with little warning, avoid losing power steering assist, prevent unintentional warning or braking when reversing, and unwarranted braking when the CX-90 mistook its own shadow for an obstacle.

One recall addressed a scary problem: The adaptive cruise control could reduce speed to match that of vehicles in an adjacent lane—a false detection that slowed the car suddenly when passing on our local Interstate 75 with other speeding vehicles on our tail.

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Other Things Drove Us Crazy

Sadly, there was a growing list of quirks that drove us nuts.

The gearshift had few fans. You slide left for park but up and down for gears. Because reverse is located where many vehicles locate the park detent, it can be a recipe for a mishap.

The 12.3-inch infotainment screen is not a touchscreen unless you use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. But when you do have your phone connected and use it to check email, it causes satellite radio to stop playing.

You must take multiple steps to change the radio station unless it has been saved as a preset because the scrolling knob only goes to presets. The car also keeps forgetting phones, forcing a new pairing. And the wireless phone charger rarely worked.

Temperature toggles are not intuitive, requiring you to push down to raise the temperature. It is similarly unintuitive to put the fuel gauge display on the right side of its section of the instrument cluster while the filler is on the left side of the vehicle. The battery gauge, meanwhile, is located on the left side of the display but on the right side of the vehicle. And you must press a release button to open the fuel cap door, but there is no parallel release for the charge door.

There is not a lot of storage up front; a shallow center console has a divided cover that’s hard to reach over to grab items inside.

Additionally, in this age of GPS, how does the Mazda CX-90 not know where it is? Driving in Michigan, we received repeated messages warning us of severe thunderstorms in Ohio and other states. And those messages are persistent, which is great if you are in the danger zone but beyond annoying when you must keep acknowledging something that is hundreds of miles from affecting you.

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Price and Cost

Our 2024 Mazda CX-90 Premium Plus carried a base price of $58,325 and came to $59,975 with only a few options. Maintenance costs for the year came to $184.74 for two oil changes and a tire rotation, which is well within the range of our previous long-term test SUVs in this segment. Our 2020 Kia Telluride, for one, only tallied $120 worth of regular maintenance. A 2019 Subaru Ascent racked up about $1,700 for a new windshield and bodywork after a parking lot incident but zero in actual scheduled maintenance costs. A 2016 Honda Pilot had $378.35 in routine maintenance costs. Staying in the family, we previously tested a 2017 Mazda CX-9 Touring, which demanded $322.35 in maintenance.

We also incurred a $900.48 bill for an emergency replacement tire and damaged wheel and spent about $244 swapping winter tires on and off, but those issues were certainly not the Mazda’s fault.

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Would We Buy One?

Launching a new model is often difficult. We appreciate the effort Mazda put in here, as well as the idea of a larger, more utilitarian, elegant, and sporty crossover for the brand’s lineup. Unfortunately, the CX-90 did not deliver on its potential. The transmission, steering, and lane keep assist can make it unpleasant to drive. The plug-in hybrid did not provide adequate range. The missteps with the non-touch infotainment screen, counterintuitive gearshift, buttons, and toggles offset the comfortable and attractive cabin. This is the first Mazda we remember driving that is not deserving of our unconditional love, and it is not a family vehicle we recommend until the company corrects at least a good number of these issues.

More on Our 2024 Mazda CX-90 Long-Termer:

• 2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV Yearlong Review Arrival: Feeding My Mazda Habit
• A Cold Cross-Country Trek in Our 2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV Gets Into Tire Trouble
• How Do Cold and Snow Affect Our 2024 Mazda CX-90 Plug-In Hybrid?
• Our 2024 Mazda X-90 PHEV’s Transmission Leaves Much To Be Desired
• 2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV Yearlong Review: Who Decided This Stuff?
• Mission Premium: Mazda Set Out to Take the CX-90 PHEV Upscale. Did it Succeed?
• Our Mazda CX-90 Has Had a Lot of Recalls—But One Fixed the Most Dangerous Problem
• Road-Tripping Our 2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV: The Best and Worst Parts