mikeyb
02-26-2006, 04:04 PM
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd00.jpg
Take a medium-sized estate praised for its handling, add four-wheel drive and install the range's most powerful engine. Result: you should have a sporty station wagon that's entertaining as well as practical. That's the theory, anyway...
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd01.jpg
Mazda's 6 range - saloon, five-door hatch and Wagon estate - is one of the sportiest, most stylish and competitively-priced contenders in its class. The 6 handles well, its petrol engines are refined and powerful (the diesel's a little more workaday), the cabin is nicely designed and finished, and it's well-equipped, too. We like it. Now comes the version with a mouthful of a name: the Mazda6 Sport4 AWD. Well, it's supposed to be Sport 4 as in Sport to the power of 4, maybe to imply that it's 4x4x4x4 times as sporty as the other models in the range, but firstly, that wouldn't read well on a web page with small type, and secondly, it isn't. We'll take the four to stand for four-wheel drive. This set-up is Mazda's own, unrelated to that of the Jaguar X-Type or any other Ford Motor Company products, and automatically distributes power to the front and rear axles according to driving conditions and the amount of grip - in normal conditions, the power is split 50:50, though at sustained high speeds, such as on the motorway, it is front-wheel drive only, and on slippery surfaces, if the front wheels lose traction power goes to the rear axle. Anyway, the driver doesn't have to intervene as this is all electronically controlled - no active input required.
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd02.jpgFitted with the smooth, refined 2.3-litre petrol engine (162 bhp, 0-60 in 12.3 seconds), the Sport4 comes in Wagon form only and yes, it's aimed at the marketing bods' favourite people that do "active leisure pursuits", with an "affluent, dynamic lifestyle". We've heard all this before, of course. These people are not so active though that they want to flex their left foot, as the Sport4 comes only with automatic transmission. Auto with a sequential-shift facility, that is: a system called Activematic. There should be no mistaking this car for a plodding workhorse load-lugger, then, even if some of the more cynical Mazda team are aware it is more likely to be deployed as a caravan-puller than as a surfboard-carrier or a mountain-biking thirty-something style statement.
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd04.jpg
Inevitably with an introduction like this, the Sport4 does not live up to its billing. You've guessed it: it's not really very sporting at all. The 2.3 engine, very pleasant in conjunction with the slick manual gearbox (and still pretty good with the standard auto 'box and front-wheel drive), has its power comprehensively sapped by the not-very-Activematic, AWD transmission. Even allowing for the high altitudes at which we tested it, it struggled up mountain inclines, had to be revved really hard for rapid responses, and generally failed to entertain or reward nearly as much as its two-wheel drive counterparts. Although the handling is still direct and precise, the four-wheel drive set-up accomplished and the electronic control systems (DSC) as unobtrusive as can be expected, the power simply isn't there to exploit this to the full, and the misplaced automatic gear ratios don't help either: the gaps between the first three gears are far too wide, no good for pushing on, refinement or indeed, for pulling anything behind. The upchanges are inappropriate and, just as importantly, kick-downs are less than intuitive, meaning that negotiating twisty bits at speed in fully auto mode happens with more of a scrabble than a swooping curve. The Sport4 was happy to cruise on the motorway, however, giving some hope for the nation's long distance caravan clubbers, but we wouldn't want to get stuck behind one towing up any more demanding terrain.
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd05.jpgMazda expects to sell just a couple of hundred Sport4s in the UK (only 1000 are destined for the whole of Europe). If the company was to fit it with the manual gearbox, it could manage a hell of a lot more, but apparently there are no plans to do this, no plans to make it available in any other bodystyle, and no plans to fit it with any other engine for a while yet, not even the diesel, which would make far more sense for a station wagon of this type, especially given the less than impressive fuel consumption of the 2.3 when worked hard. Ultimately there may be diesel or V6 petrol versions, but if you want a properly sporty 6, best wait for the as-yet-unconfirmed-but-more-or-less-definite Mazda6 MPS, which really will be a high-performance model. In the meantime, we'd suggest that the talented 2.0-litre, two-wheel drive 6 is still the optimum variant for all-round abilities and fun, and if you really do need four-wheel drive, there's the very underrated and barely more costly Subaru Legacy.
source:http://www.channel4.com/4car/road-tests/driving-impressions/mazda6sport4awd-1786/mazda6sport4awd-1786-3.html
Where is our Mazda6 with AWD?
Take a medium-sized estate praised for its handling, add four-wheel drive and install the range's most powerful engine. Result: you should have a sporty station wagon that's entertaining as well as practical. That's the theory, anyway...
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd01.jpg
Mazda's 6 range - saloon, five-door hatch and Wagon estate - is one of the sportiest, most stylish and competitively-priced contenders in its class. The 6 handles well, its petrol engines are refined and powerful (the diesel's a little more workaday), the cabin is nicely designed and finished, and it's well-equipped, too. We like it. Now comes the version with a mouthful of a name: the Mazda6 Sport4 AWD. Well, it's supposed to be Sport 4 as in Sport to the power of 4, maybe to imply that it's 4x4x4x4 times as sporty as the other models in the range, but firstly, that wouldn't read well on a web page with small type, and secondly, it isn't. We'll take the four to stand for four-wheel drive. This set-up is Mazda's own, unrelated to that of the Jaguar X-Type or any other Ford Motor Company products, and automatically distributes power to the front and rear axles according to driving conditions and the amount of grip - in normal conditions, the power is split 50:50, though at sustained high speeds, such as on the motorway, it is front-wheel drive only, and on slippery surfaces, if the front wheels lose traction power goes to the rear axle. Anyway, the driver doesn't have to intervene as this is all electronically controlled - no active input required.
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd02.jpgFitted with the smooth, refined 2.3-litre petrol engine (162 bhp, 0-60 in 12.3 seconds), the Sport4 comes in Wagon form only and yes, it's aimed at the marketing bods' favourite people that do "active leisure pursuits", with an "affluent, dynamic lifestyle". We've heard all this before, of course. These people are not so active though that they want to flex their left foot, as the Sport4 comes only with automatic transmission. Auto with a sequential-shift facility, that is: a system called Activematic. There should be no mistaking this car for a plodding workhorse load-lugger, then, even if some of the more cynical Mazda team are aware it is more likely to be deployed as a caravan-puller than as a surfboard-carrier or a mountain-biking thirty-something style statement.
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd04.jpg
Inevitably with an introduction like this, the Sport4 does not live up to its billing. You've guessed it: it's not really very sporting at all. The 2.3 engine, very pleasant in conjunction with the slick manual gearbox (and still pretty good with the standard auto 'box and front-wheel drive), has its power comprehensively sapped by the not-very-Activematic, AWD transmission. Even allowing for the high altitudes at which we tested it, it struggled up mountain inclines, had to be revved really hard for rapid responses, and generally failed to entertain or reward nearly as much as its two-wheel drive counterparts. Although the handling is still direct and precise, the four-wheel drive set-up accomplished and the electronic control systems (DSC) as unobtrusive as can be expected, the power simply isn't there to exploit this to the full, and the misplaced automatic gear ratios don't help either: the gaps between the first three gears are far too wide, no good for pushing on, refinement or indeed, for pulling anything behind. The upchanges are inappropriate and, just as importantly, kick-downs are less than intuitive, meaning that negotiating twisty bits at speed in fully auto mode happens with more of a scrabble than a swooping curve. The Sport4 was happy to cruise on the motorway, however, giving some hope for the nation's long distance caravan clubbers, but we wouldn't want to get stuck behind one towing up any more demanding terrain.
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media-legacy/featpics/mazda/mazda6awd05.jpgMazda expects to sell just a couple of hundred Sport4s in the UK (only 1000 are destined for the whole of Europe). If the company was to fit it with the manual gearbox, it could manage a hell of a lot more, but apparently there are no plans to do this, no plans to make it available in any other bodystyle, and no plans to fit it with any other engine for a while yet, not even the diesel, which would make far more sense for a station wagon of this type, especially given the less than impressive fuel consumption of the 2.3 when worked hard. Ultimately there may be diesel or V6 petrol versions, but if you want a properly sporty 6, best wait for the as-yet-unconfirmed-but-more-or-less-definite Mazda6 MPS, which really will be a high-performance model. In the meantime, we'd suggest that the talented 2.0-litre, two-wheel drive 6 is still the optimum variant for all-round abilities and fun, and if you really do need four-wheel drive, there's the very underrated and barely more costly Subaru Legacy.
source:http://www.channel4.com/4car/road-tests/driving-impressions/mazda6sport4awd-1786/mazda6sport4awd-1786-3.html
Where is our Mazda6 with AWD?