Mitsubishi Mazda CX-30 Extended Test Drive

The tl:dr version. I hate it, and all its bells & whistles. And it is too small. (The update shows how little I paid attention to it.)

I'm sure some of this, perhaps most of this, is mandated by the Traffic Safety people, or whoever controls the stuff like airbags and other "safety" stuff. It has gone too far. I'm also sure that they don't care about safety as much as making cars too expensive for the average person to drive. Now on to the review.

Due to a fender bender, my vehicle was in the shop, and so I had what amounts to an "extended test-drive" in a Mitsubishi Mazda CX-30. I honestly don't know how you can call a vehicle this small an SUV, but then that goes for a lot of things.

OK, this is not part of the review, because I would never buy this vehicle because of this. I wouldn't even take it for a test drive. It is just too small for me. Not just because I am fat (I am), but because of my height. A don't think a skinny 6-foot-tall person would be comfortable in this vehicle. (I want to call it a car, not an SUV because that is how it seemed to me.) About every 3rd time I get into it, I hit my head on the roof frame by the door, because the roof really isn't high enough. But that isn't what I hate about the vehicle; it was designed for short people. And you REALLY don't want to try to fit an adult into the back seat. At least not a 6-ft-tall adult.

What follows is what I actually hate.

In order to drive the vehicle, you need to be wearing the seat-belt. My driveway is quite long. I have a mailbox that lets me know when someone has deposited something. So if I see that I have mail, I usually jump out of the car to get the mail. When I get back in, I have to fasten the seat-belt. This is to drive the vehicle down my own driveway. If you are not wearing the seat-belt, it will not disengage the parking break.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is automatic. One example: Instead of a switch to turn the passenger seat airbag on and off, there are pressure sensors in the seat to gauge the weight of who is sitting there. That will never go bad. That is just one example.

It warns you, with an alarm, if there is something next to you when you turn on the turn signal. There is a place where I make a right turn, almost every day, where there is a guard rail next to me. I know the guard rail is there. There is a river, on the other side of that rail. I also know the river is there. I am not planning an changing lanes; I am planning on turning right onto the bridge across the river. It was annoying on the first day. After a week, I wanted to yank the sensor out.

Like I said, I'm sure some of this is mandated by the federal .gov and whatever part of the bureaucracy wants to make cars too expensive for the average person. (They are succeeding.) It is a level of insanity that is not to be believed.

I know the whole keyless entry system is standard today. It would be nice if it was secure, but that has been shown to not be the case. Also not part of the review, because "everyone is doing it. And it is nice that the car will unlock if you walk up to it.

One thing I did like, though I did not do a lot of highway driving during the time in question. The fact that cruise control will adjust to the speed of the vehicle in front of you. The first time it happened it took me a bit by surprise, but I thought that was a good idea. Not sure how long that will last, or what would happen if the front of the vehicle was covered with snow, ice, and winter crud.

One thing I really liked, is that the vehicle did NOT shut itself off every time you stopped. Whoever designed that "let's stress the starter and the battery about 1000 times more than we ever have" system, never spent the winter in Chicago or Minneapolis. Batteries always start in the cold right? They never die, and so this system won't leave you stranded at every stop sign.

That's my opinion. YMMV.