Kilometres travelled
50,000 - 75,000 km
Did you buy this car new or used?
New
How much did you pay? (including all on-road costs)
63000
What were your needs when you bought this car? Has it fulfilled those needs?
Just needed a comfortable and safe family wagon that had plenty of space. I do a big weekly commute from the Waikato to Auckland so fuel economy and driver aides were important too.
What were your initial thoughts about the car? Tell us why it appealed to you.
It had everything I wanted and great styling. The fixed price service fee of $250 for the first 10 services is a great saving vs other makes of ute.
What have you discovered since owning the car?
Being an Isuzu with a Mazda skin it's a bit too Isuzu and not enough Mazda on the interior and user interfaces. I also own a late model Mazda 3 and it's much slicker and the interior fit out is better. If the BT 50 was to the same standard it would be excellent. The motor, drive train and ride are great and refined for a ute. One safety feature that is truly awful is the Electronic Lane Keeping. It's way too aggressive and can be outright scary on NZ open roads. Example is if something like a truck coming towards your drifts over the center line and you veer left it sees the side line and aggressively tries to steer you back towards the oncoming truck. Real change your undies stuff on our narrow open roads. Initially it was painful to turn off deep down in the menu and it reset to on every time the vehicle stopped. You also had to pull over to turn it off as the safety features wouldn't let you access the menu while underway. Thankfully there were so many complaints about this feature in NZ and Australia there has been a software patch done which maps the turning it off to a button on the steering wheel and it can be done on the fly. Another disappointing aspect is the vinyl beading on the "leather accented" seats is already delaminating on the driver's side.
What do you like/dislike about the car?
Great ride, fuel economy and quiet as a ute. Have outlined what I don't like above where it's too Isuzu and not enough Mazda.
Reliability
5
Features/technology
4
Performance/economy
5
Value for money
3
Overall rating
4
Lastly, would you buy this vehicle again?
No
Why would/wouldn't you buy it again?
For the price the interior fit out and the driver experience just isn't up to scratch. I would probably by lower down the model list rather than going for the Limited model.