2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV Yearlong Review: Who Decided This Stuff?!

Our long-term 2024 Mazda CX-90 SUV plug-in hybrid is a stunning crossover, inside and out. The seats are comfortable and feel premium. The interior materials are varied and attractive. Space for people and cargo is on par with many others in the segment. But it also has its warts, too, leading to a sometimes frustrating ownership experience for our CX-90.

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Mixed Marks for Infotainment

The CX-90 has a large infotainment screen tilted slightly toward the driver, adding to the sense of being in a cockpit. But it isn’t a touchscreen in its native form—you must use the dials and controls in the center console—and this frustrates some of the MotorTrend staff to no end, a definite negative. But if you engage Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, it becomes a touchscreen—see how we’ve swung back to pro here? Making the screen all touch, all the time, would be the ultimate solution. In the meantime, we avoid the Mazda infotainment ecosystem by using CarPlay and Android Auto as much as possible.

We also continue to be frustrated with how convoluted Mazda makes it to change the radio station. It takes multiple steps unless the station has been saved as a preset. And the scrolling knob only goes to presets. The car remembers some phones but keeps forgetting mine, and I seemingly must connect via USB to pair it again. Not difficult, just annoying.

Other quibbles: You unintuitively must push down on the temperature control, which looks like a toggle, to raise the temperature. It's similarly unintuitive to put the fuel gauge display on the right side of its section of the gauge cluster when the filler is on the left side of the vehicle. The battery gauge, meanwhile, is on the left side of the same section with the plug on the right side of the vehicle. It's not that these gauges are where they are—plenty of vehicles put the gas gauge on the right side of the display when the filler is on the left—it''s that two gauges in close proximity are arranged counterintuitively given the different places to add two different types of fuel. These are digital displays in a customizable world; it’d be nice if we could move those gauges around, or if they were arranged sensibly by default.

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Frustrating Center Console

For a family vehicle, there isn't much storage up front. The center console, which is shallow, has a divided cover that is hard to see and annoying to reach over and grab items from. And that‘s when seated. It becomes almost impossible to grab items you forgot from outside the vehicle.

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Windshield Wiper Service Mode

Shutting off the vehicle one day, I inadvertently hit the windshield wiper stalk in such a way that it put the wipers into service mode: locked straight up and down. There was no obvious way to move them, and I had a road trip planned for the next day with a forecast for rain and snow. The owner’s manual didn’t help, either.

I called the local Mazda dealer who said they only had one technician trained on the new CX-90, he was not in, and there were no appointments available, but he would try to find an answer. He called back to say it was likely the same service mode feature that was in the Mazda CX-30 that locked them in place to replace a wiper. The manual did not say how to unlock it, but YouTube did. Press the start button twice for accessory mode and raise the windshield wiper stalk. It did not work on the first try: I got a message telling me to put the wipers back on the glass. The trick was to turn the car off and back on again, then push the stalk up twice to move the wipers back into their regular position tucked under the hood for better aerodynamics. Success. We see this as both a pro and a con. The service mode is necessary because the wipers tuck under the cowl, an area that can easily fill with snow and ice and trap the wipers in place. But it does require extra steps, and those steps should be outlined in the owner’s manual.

Recalls Mounting

Speaking of service, the Mazda went to the dealer to address a groaning noise from the front end that occured during low-speed steering inputs. The technician greased the rear bushings on the front lower control arms and installed dust covers to keep contaminants out. There were no dust covers on this part of the CX-90 previously. There is a service bulletin (TSB 02-002/24) out for this issue, so we are not the only ones to experience it.

While there, three recalls were performed:

• Software update to fix an issue where the cameras would not display on the screen when they should.
• Software update to fix an issue where the engine or electric motor may shut down with little to no warning.
• To address an issue where the vehicle can lose power steering assist, the technician applied grease to the worm gear and replaced the spring that applies force to the worm gear. This worm gear transmits torque from the power-assist motor to the steering rack.

When we picked up the CX-90 PHEV at the end of the day, the check engine light was on. The dealership was closing, so we drove away, hoping the light would turn off on its own. It did not. The dealer had washed the car but did not fill the washer fluid despite a light and pop-up message on the dash indicating it was low. We had left it low intentionally to see if the dealer would fill it. They didn’t pass that test.

The next morning, with the engine light still on after driving the vehicle four times, the CX-90 went back to the dealership. Of course, the light did not come on during the next startup when the service adviser went to check the vehicle in. They still scanned it and found code P2610, which indicates that the engine computer can’t identify the state of the engine. Since it wasn’t an active code, they just cleared it. They said it could have been caused by the software updates performed during the original service visit. After about 45 minutes the car was ready to leave. The adviser had noted the low washer fluid during check-in and this time the CX-90 was returned with the washer tank full and its second wash in two days. The check engine light has thankfully not returned.

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 CX-90 PHEV’s Transmission Leaves Much To Be Desired

*EPA blended-PHEV (charge-depleting) mode testing, with vehicles set to their default drive and brake-regeneration modes.