Mazda CX-60 Pure G40e 2026 review
More cylinders for the cash than any rival, is the cut-price Pure the answer to Mazda’s Large Product sales slump? We’re not convinced
Following a faltering premium push, Mazda’s much-anticipated Large Product cars have shifted down market.
Along with a cheaper entry price ($50,240 for the tested G40e petrol), the 2025 CX-60 brings tweaks to ride, handling and powertrain that has been called for since launch — hopefully without sacrificing signature dynamics.
Mazda isn’t stopping here, either, introducing a $44,240 entry-grade CX-60 with a 2.5-litre, non-turbo petrol engine under the bonnet in the coming months.
On test is the most affordable six-pot CX-60 in Pure guise. It’s not only the current entry point in the range, but the cheapest six-cylinder powered vehicle on the market right now…ignoring the Hyundai Staria V6. That has to be worth something, right?
It certainly helps the CX-60 stand out among rivals, which now don’t include the BMW X3 or Audi Q5, but rather the Volkswagen Tiguan 150TSI R-Line ($55,990), Nissan X-Trail Ti E-Power ($53,265), and Toyota RAV4 Cruiser AWD hybrid ($54,410, all prices before on-road costs).
The Mazda CX-60 Pure is equipped with the following features:
- 18-inch alloy wheels
- All-wheel drive
- Automatic LED headlights
- Keyless access to the front doors and boot
- Black cloth upholstery
- Eight-way manual driver’s seat
- Leather-appointed steering wheel
- 10.25-inch Mazda Connect touchscreen
- 7.0-inch digital instrument cluster
- Eight-speaker sound system
- Dual-zone climate control air conditioning with rear air vents
- Front and rear parking sensors
- Reversing camera
- Space-saver spare wheel
Moving up through the range is worthwhile, as the entry-spec feels more plain-jane than Pure.
The Evolve adds faux leather upholstery, wireless charging, a power tailgate and 360-degree camera, but we recommend the $58,240 (before on-road costs) Touring, with real leather upholstery on its heated seats, with power driver adjustment.
You can move even further up to the GT and Azami flagships with lusher cabins and more equipment.
Mazda offers three other powertrains, too. Save $6000 by going for the entry-level petrol four-cylinder, choose the ‘D50e’ diesel for an extra $2000 — worth it if you like easy-going torque — or the $13,050 dearer ‘P50e’ plug-in hybrid.
Rated five stars against ANCAP’s 2022 protocol, the CX-60 Pure benefits from safety features such as eight airbags, front and rear AEB, blind-spot monitoring, and more.
Being judged against ANCAP’s older and more lenient criteria, the CX-60 forgoes many annoying beeps for driver attention and speed limit monitoring that afflict newer vehicles, such as the Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson.
Against a combined fuel consumption of 7.4L/100km, our week with the CX-60 Pure saw 9.2L/100km in a mix of driving. Expect closer to 11L/100km in urban scenarios, though the 60’s ’six will happily take cheaper 91RON or E10 petrol at the bowser.
A five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty covers the CX-60 and maintenance is due annually or every 15,000km, whichever comes first. Ain’t cheap, though, with five years of servicing priced at $3544.
How does the CX-60 Pure drive?
Despite major chassis and drivetrain revisions early in its life, the Mazda CX-60 remains a confounding car to drive.
All the ingredients are there — with double wishbone suspension, an eight-speed automatic and an inline-six; the specs read like a BMW X3 — but Mazda’s chefs are yet to bring them together in total harmony.
Latest suspension changes amount to softer springs and dampers, revised kinematics, and no rear anti-roll bar.
The result? An improved, less sharp-edged ride in town. The CX-60 is more compliant, and that’s good.
This generally has not affected the CX-60’s star calling — driving enjoyment — either. On a good, smooth country road it’s easy to find flow in the CX-60 Pure, its Yokohama tyres providing progressive breakaway, weighty steering confidence, and the rear-biased AWD system an amount of on-throttle adjustability.
Throw in a few mid-corner bumps, though, and things get scrappy.
Softening the rear has sacrificed body control in the CX-60 — it’s now underdamped at the rear. This can be felt around town, too, with excessive movement coming off speed bumps. Well-calibrated adaptive dampers would be a simple solution.
What about the 3.3-litre turbocharged, inline, six-cylinder petrol engine? Well, outputs in the CX-60 are modest (full beans are reserved for bigger cars like CX-90), with power and torque listed at 209kW and 450Nm.
The engine grumbles into life, sounds okay at 2000rpm and never crescendoes into the refined warble of a BMW straight-six. The CX-60’s understressed six-cylinder feels like it’s done its best work by about 4500rpm, which does suit the vibe of a family SUV.
While testing, we encountered some strange harmonics under heavy acceleration in first and second gears, like a dull hum from the rear axle — perhaps traction control or Mazda’s Kinetic Posture Control working away.
We’re yet to sample the base four-cylinder CX-60, and the plug-in hybrid is flawed. The D50e diesel is the most pleasant match to Mazda’s mid-sizer.
Again, the eight-speed automatic transmission with its unique clutch, rather than a torque converter, is better than before. It’s still not creamy smooth around town, though, often thumping after moments of indecision.
The fact remains that the cheaper CX-5 is a less sporty but more cohesive driving experience than the occasionally great, but otherwise flawed, CX-60.
What is the CX-60 Pure’s interior and tech like?
Cost-cutting is immediately apparent in the CX-60 Pure’s cabin, with hard door tops, low-quality cloth upholstery, easy-marking plastics and a down-sized, non-touch multimedia screen.
There’s a benefit in that the rotary dial is more consistent to use on the move. In today’s world, the combination of touch and scroll is what we want. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto both connect wirelessly, but the process to achieve this was glacially slow and cumbersome.
Practicality has never been a CX-60 strong point, with front door bins limited to a 500mL camping bottle, small centre storage bin and centre console that’s focused on looking sleek, rather than useful storage.
It’s a shame, because the cabin design has legs. You sit low in a familiar, sporty position with ample manual adjustment from the chair. The steering wheel is the right size, and the semi-digital dials are attractive.
There are two USB-C ports and a 12-volt socket in the front seat, while the back seat gets a pair of USB-C points, a three-pin socket and two vents.
The CX-60 retains a great back seat, spacious for adults with lots of vision, a shapely backrest, comfortable vents and doors that open nice and wide.
Shame the scratchy plastics continue in the back, and the tall transmission tunnel means middle-seat passengers need to splay their legs.
The CX-60 Pure’s 40/20/40 split backrest folds almost flat with pull-down levels in the boot, where space is reasonable at 477 litres. Boot practicalities include a 12-volt socket, a netted cubby to the left, and a temporary spare tyre.
The honest verdict on the CX-60 Pure
Though Mazda has essentially abandoned its premium strategy in Australia, we were expecting flow-on good engineering to make it into the entry-level CX-60 Pure, but that’s just not the case.
All said and done, the CX-60 has a great back seat and can inspire true enjoyment on a smooth twisty road — the chassis is good and the engine is punchy.
Audi Q3 2026 Review: First International Drive
3 weeks ago
The third-gen Q3 launches with bold looks, vast screens, but a familiar solidarity beneath it all
Good points
- Newly emboldened design
- Tidy, effective dynamics
- Diverse engine range
- Interior mixes tech and tradition
Needs work
- Headlight tech feels a gimmick
- Not a thriller to drive
- Mushy brake pedal
- Still awaiting Aussie prices
Say hello to a big deal: the new, third-gen iteration of Australia’s biggest selling Audi. The German brand shifted twice as many Q3s as larger Q5s in 2024 on our shores; impressive when the latter is more successful globally.
You’ll forgive Audi for sticking pretty rigidly to its usual SUV script, then, though the new Q3 throws in a few unexpected plot twists to keep us alert.
The looks will be the first thing you’ve noticed. The outgoing second-generation car is a smart, chiselled thing, but fortuitously pulling up beside one at traffic lights – mere moments into our first drive of the third-gen – suddenly made it look dowdy.
Whether or not you like the chintzy single-frame grille, glitzy front LEDs or split taillight design, this is a more confident car than its forebear. Especially with the optional light-up rear Audi rings on the boot lid.
Y’know, just to really let everyone know you’ve not succumbed to cheaper Chinese competition.
The Q3 operates at a point where the BYDs and Jaecoos of this world may just nip at its ankles, so we commend the Audi designers for going all-in on bold styling to fight back.
Same goes for the interior, where a vast curved panoramic display combines an 11.9-inch instrument cluster and a 12.8-inch central touchscreen that runs Android and is supplemented by AI features.
Like their Volkswagen Tiguan and Skoda Kodiaq compadres, all third-gen Q3s come solely with an automatic gearbox across all markets, with Audi moving the gear selector behind the steering wheel to clear up space in the centre console for cupholders and a wireless charging pad (cooled, no less).
It’s also taken the opportunity to reinvent the mundane stalk with a new, fixed bar which houses an up/down switch for the indicators at one end and gears at the other. The wipers are moved to a neat, circular dial on the left.
It looks clunky at a standstill, but won’t bewilder you for much longer than a few junctions. Once your fingers have acclimatised to their new command, you’ll revel in the satisfying click of their operation.
Also new to the Q3 is some showy Micro LED light technology. 25,600 hair-width bulbs carve out patterns in the light beams cast ahead of you to signal blind-spot dangers during late-night driving – or help place you between the white lines on dark, wending country lanes.
Too bad the technology is flummoxed by heavy rain, not least when the car was launched in autumnal Scotland. We’ve not seen it at its best, then, and if you’re already looking ahead and keeping an eye on your mirrors, they don’t appear to offer much beyond a bit of theatre.
Maybe theatre is welcome, though. The rest of the driving experience favours effortless satisfaction with little room for fripperies like ‘excitement’.
The Q3 turns sharply enough into corners while riding reasonably well. It won’t entertain, but it handles a lot neater than many of its rivals despite some portly kerb weights as you head up the range.
Just beware its mushy brake pedal feel and be mindful of your wheel choice – all of Audi’s initial test cars wore chunky 20-inch alloys, which made a fuss on more damaged road surfaces (we all know ‘em) while generating some fierce tyre roar at a quick cruise.
Stick to the 18s or 19s: this is meant to be a compact SUV, after all…
It’s a mite bigger than before, breaching 4.5m in length, but it’s still comfortably smaller than a Q5. It launches simultaneously as an SUV and Sportback for the first time, the latter dropping its roofline by 29mm aft of the A-pillars (while still bringing no mechanical advantage).
Though it naturally reduces rear headroom, the result isn’t disastrous and one adult can still slot neatly behind another in either model.
Boot volume is remarkably similar between the pair, too; with the rear seats up, both cars claim a peak of 488 litres, the plug-in Q3 e-hybrid dropping this to 375 litres. Flip the seats down and the Q3 SUV ekes out a 97-litre advantage over the Sportback, claiming 1386 litres (or 1293 in the e-hybrid).
Interior quality is pretty strong, even if leather has given way to fabrics in a lot of places – much of it recycled to score brownie points with younger generations sat in the back.
The screens are a mixed bag – the smaller driver’s display feels limited in its scope, and a long way from the pioneer spirit of the Audi Virtual Cockpit that kicked off this whole philosophy in the third-generation TT coupe.
Thankfully, the larger central touchscreen is rich in both pixels and logic and there’s even a discreet ‘shelf’ to anchor your hand on as you operate it. The best bit? You don’t even realise you’re doing it – the hallmark of properly intelligent design.
Supplementing its ingenuity are fixed climate controls on the screen (helping us forgive their migration from physical buttons), a proper volume dial and – hurrah! – a starter button to fire the Q3 into life. Screens may dominate, but they’ve not totally steamrollered tradition.
The Q3 launches in Europe with a wealth of powertrains, albeit none of them fully electric – that remains a job for the Q4 e-tron.
Instead you have a bunch of petrols, some assisted with mild-hybrid tech, plus a plug-in e-hybrid and turbodiesel. The base 110kW 1.5-litre TFSI does a respectable enough job if it’s just you (or another) on board, but we suspect it’ll strain under the full caboodle of kids and luggage.
A 0-100km/h dash of 9.1secs tells the story of a car with modest performance – but its raspy sound at higher revs feels quite fun in an increasingly electrified era. More pertinent is its claim of 6.0L/100km fuel economy.
Increased gratification comes with the 2.0 TFSI options above it, offering 150 or 195kW (and 7.8 or 8.5L/100km), both allied to Quattro all-wheel drive.
We’ve sampled the latter and while this engine doesn’t punch as hard is in a lighter VW Golf GTI – naturally – it’s a welcome novelty in an eminently sensible SUV and the wet, autumnal Scottish roads proved its nous in slippery conditions. It’s not extrovertly AWD, but it avoids some of the jittering wheelspin of its FWD buddies.
Both the TDI and e-hybrid are currently FWD only. We rather like the former, even if its sales share has dwindled and diesel is a long way from flavour of the month. It’s smooth, refined and brings strong 110kW/360Nm performance and 5.3l/100km economy to a car in which you’ll relish both.
Mind, Audi expects the plug-in car to be similarly niche – and we don’t yet know if Oz will get it. An uprated 130kW 1.5 TFSI engine mates with a 85kW e-motor for a 200kW peak and thus the punchiest third-gen Q3 so far – but a mighty job for that front axle.
Its 19.7kWh (useable) battery is much bigger than its predecessor, yielding up to 120km of WLTP electric range. This provides great tax benefits in some markets and should make it a placid thing to amble around in if your commute is short enough. It can charge at up to 50kW on DC too – but remember the boot space is nabs in the process.
It also costs more at list. While Australian prices aren’t yet released – expect those closer to the car’s 2026 on-sale date – the hybrid commands around 20 per cent more than a base 1.5 TFSI or 2.0 TDI in Europe.
Though we’ll await specs and pricing for our full, rubber-stamped verdict, the new Q3 nails everything an Audi SUV should be: comfy interior, tidy if uninvolving dynamics, and a generous choice of trims and powertrains.
If you’re an existing owner, you’ll step happily into this one without breaking stride – it’s a trim ‘n’ tidy up rather than a whole new hairdo and a solid bet amid a crossover market undergoing minor revolution. Expect its strong Aussie sales record to continue.
Chasing more Q3?
Often compared with
