Mazda CX-9 wins carsales.com.au Car of the Year

The 2016 carsales.com.au Car of the Year awards has been run and won… And the all-new Mazda CX-9 has been crowned the overall winner.

Judged the top vehicle across 13 lifestyle categories, the seven-seater is the first SUV to win the prestigious title.

In awarding the CX-9 the carsales.com.au Car of the Year title, the CX-9 outperformed in terms of value for money, packaging and safety.

A comprehensive safety suite is standard across the CX-9 range and includes autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, a reversing camera and rear cross traffic alert. And those driver aids are complemented by road manners that set a new standard for the affordable SUV class.

Indeed, our judges concluded that the CX-9’s interior defines practicality, with plenty of storage options and good space throughout -- including an adult-friendly third-row seat.

On the innovation front, downsizing to a more efficient turbo-petrol engine, shedding significant weight and the availability of a clever on-demand all-wheel drive system delivers against the expectations of modern Australian families.

The polished interior also sets a new benchmark for Mazda in terms of cabin refinement and quietness.

“SUVs are quickly becoming the vehicle of choice for Australian families but some of the genre demand real compromises in terms of handling, safety and performance. The CX-9 is the antithesis of this atmosphere of compromise – it is not only an important new vehicle, it is an outstanding one,” said carsales.com.au Editor in Chief, Mike Sinclair.

“As a true 21st Century Aussie family vehicle, the CX-9 is a deserved winner of our top award for 2016,” he said.

According to industry figures, SUVs have accounted for more than a third of all new-vehicle registration in Australia this year. The high-riding two- and all-wheel drive wagons are tipped to exceed half of all new vehicle sales in coming years.

Mazda is one of the industry’s top performers and boasts Australia’s top-selling small and medium SUVs year to date.

The CX-9 also took out the top honours in its lifestyle category, Best SUV Under $50K. The carsales.com au Car of the Year categories are based on commonly searched vehicle lifestyle segments and align with search options on the carsales.com.au website.

Mazda’s Mazda6 took out Best Family Car Over $30K in the 2016 awards.

Other category winners included Audi’s all-new A4 luxury sedan and Ford’s hottest new affordable sports hatch, the all-wheel drive Focus RS. Audi and Ford vehicles took out three category wins each.

The carsales.com.au Car of the Year winners are:

2016 carsales.com.au Car of the Year category winners:
Best First Car: Skoda Fabia
Best City Car: Audi A3 Sportback e-tron
Best Family Car Under $30K: Skoda Octavia
Best Family Car Over $30K: Mazda6
Best Green Car: BMW i3 ReX
Best Offroad 4x4: Ford Ranger
Best Performance Car Under $100K: Ford Focus RS
Best Performance Car Over $100K: Porsche 911 Carrera S
Best Prestige Car Under $100K: Audi A4
Best Prestige Car Over $100K: Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Best SUV Under $50K: Mazda CX-9
Best SUV Over $50K: Audi Q7
Best Tradie vehicle: Ford Ranger

The Judging Process
The carsales.com.au Car of the Year award is not bestowed lightly. carsales.com.au is Australia’s number-one online automotive website and our network of websites, including motoring.com.au, is the default resource for all new-car buyers.

As a result carsales.com.au Car of the Year is now considered Australia’s number-one automotive award and presents its winner to the largest automotive audience in the country.

The process of selection is multi-faceted and unlike other ‘best car’ awards uses live consumer and financial data.

Data Rules
The vehicles eligible for consideration in carsales.com.au Car of the Year were selected from the finalists of this year’s Motoring Recommends field.

Winners from each of our 13 lifestyle categories (see full list above) were then selected for COTY testing via a process that combined the point-scoring of our eight-strong judging panel and the application of relevant Redbook.com.au cost of ownership and carsales network consumer engagement data.

This is a key point of difference between carsales.com.au Car of the Year and other awards.

The very first cut for eligibility is on-sale dates. To qualify for the carsales.com.au Car of the Year awards, new cars must be available for sale to the general public via recognised OEM (manufacturer or approved importer) channels before September 1 in the year of the awards.

Next, Redbook confirms eligibility on the basis of each category’s rules. This might include minimum requirements for safety, as is the case in the First and Family Cars awards, or even power-to-weight ratio in the Performance categories. The rules also specify factors such as minimum luggage capacity or ground clearance and transmission/powertrain types – the latter pairing in the case of the Offroad 4x4 category.

Then comes price. Eligibility is based on recommended retail price of the base model under consideration. After that, all expert evaluation, ownership costs and affordability calculations are based on the price, packaging and equipment of the respective top-selling variants.

It’s the nitty-gritty of the data calculations that separates carsales Car of the Year. In 2016, expert ‘seat of the pants’ opinion forms 70 per cent of the potential 100 point maximum score for each vehicle, with cost to run, retained value, consumer engagement, affordability and a new ‘Safety Bonus’ comprising the rest.

As more objective data sets become available in the future, we may review the above ratios.

For the time being, cost to run is by far the most complex calculation. This includes estimated costs for fuel, on-road costs, tyres, insurance, servicing and finance over a three-year period, averaged per month for each of the five category finalists.

Once calculated, the cheapest car to run gets 10 points with points applied to the rest as a ratio of the lowest monthly cost. More details on these calculations are listed below.

Retained Value is worth a maximum of five points. This is calculated as a percentage of recommended retail price (RRP) of the Redbook ‘Good Retail Retained’ value/estimate after 36 months (60,000km). Here points are applied as a ratio of the highest retained value.

Consumer Engagement is a measure of the popularity of the vehicle with new-car buyers and is awarded a maximum of five points. This leverages data from within the carsales network and calculates ‘detailed views’ of the Vehicle Model (ie: all Mazda6s) for the July and August immediately prior to award's eligibility date. Points here are applied as a ratio of the highest views.

Affordability is a measure of the category finalists against each other based on RRP. Points are applied as a ratio of the lowest RRP of the five category finalists, with the lowest priced vehicle scoring a maximum of five points.

With the view to rewarding new safety technologies, in 2016 we have added a Safety Bonus worth up to five points. To score the full five points this year, cars must have a reversing camera and autonomous emergency braking as standard across their full respective model walks. Include one or the other and the car gets an additional 2.5 points added to its score.

For next year (2017), model families without a reversing camera as standard will not be eligible for motoring.com.au Recommends and therefore will not be included in the carsales.com.au Car of the Year judging.

Behind the Wheel
It’s a measure of the maturity of the carsales.com.au Car of the Year award and our desire to improve it each year that in 2016 we added an extra multi-day static examination and drive-off to the process.

The judging took place at the Wodonga TAFE complex in Barnawartha, Victoria, utilising both a closed circuit and defined road loop of approximately 42km. In total our judges completed almost 15,000km of testing.

Focussing on five key criteria (value for money, packaging and accommodation, innovation and design, and safety and driveability), our judges first examined the 12 finalists (one vehicle was top in two lifestyle categories) in a static setting, discussing and investigating their various attributes and relevance before subjecting each of the vehicles to multiple road loops.

Following two days of assessment of the whole field including single and two-up driving, the judges then culled the field to five cars.

Testing then recommenced with four judges onboard for road loops. Again referring to our five key criteria, the judging panel examined how well the vehicles performed in real-world conditions.

Passenger comfort and dynamic ability were scrutinised over the main 42km loop, as well as a challenging secondary road course offering a mix of more challenging surfaces and conditions.

At the business end of the process the carsales.com.au Car of the Year judges returned to base for continued debate and reflection. Discussing the pros and cons of each of the finalists against the aforementioned key criteria gave our judges a sound base from which to cast final votes.

A three-to-one point score was then used to elect the final podium... And this year, the results were all but unanimous…

More detail on carsales COTY data-based calculations
Cost to run
Calculated based on the below criteria. Costs are average per month over three years and 60,000km.

Fuel
Based on ADR Combined fuel consumption. Fuel prices as at August 31, 2016 -- excludes any shopper docket or other discounts. Assumed mileage is 20,000km annually for three years. Fuel RON rating/FE figures as per Redrook data.

On-road costs
Based on initial year stamp duty plus registration for Victorian Metro. Registration charges only for years two and three. Includes Victorian hybrid/electric discount of $100 where applicable.

Tyres
Based on 20,000km annually. Tyre costs from Tyresales.com.au (averaged, excluding the no-name Chinese brands). Turnover of tyres varies on segment, though generally assumed to get 50,000km from a set of tyres, so at least one replacement set of new tyres will be required over 60,000km/three-year period.

Insurance
Based of online quotes from Budget Direct (via carsales.com.au) where available, or from RACV as an alternative.

Finance
Assumes 100 per cent finance over three years at 7.00 per cent interest rate via Stratton.com.au finance calculator.

Servicing
Uses manufacturer scheduled service costs where available, or alternatively, assumed default values for each segment, based on prior Redbook cost-to-own studies.

Related reading:
Mazda CX-9 Quick Spin
Mazda CX-9 Review
2016 Seven-seat SUV Comparison