Mazda6 2013 Long-term test - 2

Price: $37.500 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol
Output: 138kW/250Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel / CO2: 6.6L/100km / 153g/km
Safety: Five-star ANCAP/Six airbags

Our long-term test Mazda6 Touring has been put through its paces over the last week or so – and as a family sedan for five it has passed the test with flying colours.

Loaded up with four adults or two parents and two kids, the Mazda has ferried people hither and yon over hundreds of kilometres. Fortunately, its rear-seat accommodation has been exceptional, offering decent legroom and headroom for adults.

Seat comfort was outstanding also, with appropriate cushioning and well shaped squab and base for optimal support. And the pedals for the driver were placed far enough away that I didn't have to sit like Buddha when the steering wheel was adjusted to the correct distance.

The vehicle on test came trimmed in a combination of cream leather and black leather for steering wheel, handbrake lever and gear shifter – with soft grey plastics elsewhere. Hard materials comprised piano gloss black, satin-finish aluminium and dark red acrylic. This is one cabin richer than we're used to seeing in a car retailing below $40,000.

Only the Tom Tom satellite navigation has let the team down inside. At one point it announced a 'file access error' and refused to direct us to our destination. Presumably that is an easy fix for the local Mazda dealer.

I had previously driven the third-generation Mazda6 during its local launch in Adelaide late last year and came away from that raving about the car.

Nothing has changed. Hop in and drive the Mazda6 after almost any other car below $50,000 and you can't help but notice the fit and finish, and the car's ride comfort and handling balance, or the easily tapped performance from the engine – all the virtues people want from their car.

The Mazda6 is not a stingy car that feels like the designers scrimped on the niceties to save fuel, but its fuel economy is laudable, nonetheless. Consumption posted by the trip computer averaged 7.5 to 7.6L/100km – thanks to plenty of open-road cruising.

The neighbour across the road owns a Mazda6 in almost identical specification (other than colour and trim). He claims his car, which is mostly driven gently around town, returns fuel consumption of about 10L/100km. That is still a pretty good figure for a large family sedan with a 2.5-litre petrol engine driving through an automatic transmission.

Part of the reason the Mazda6 is so frugal is the i-Stop (idle stop-start) system, which kills the engine while you're waiting for the traffic lights to change. Many people experiencing it for the first time don't like it, which is why it's good that Mazda has packaged the car with a disable button on the dash, right of the steering wheel. It seems passengers don't like being startled out of their reverie as the engine rumbles back into life, while drivers worry about the delay between lifting the foot off the brake pedal and the drive wheels turning, lest they're collected by another vehicle.

Some people just don't like the system on principle. A young bloke directing traffic at Phillip Island for the V8 Supercar race performed a double-take when the engine cut out just as he was about to direct me to a parking spot.

"Did that just stop?" he asked, looking towards the front of the car. When I admitted it had, to save fuel, he responded with: "F...ing stupid thing."

I have to say, I'm a fan of the system. Apart from the fact it's saving significant amounts of fuel over the course of an average commute each day, the Mazda set-up is more refined than many such systems and restarts quickly each time. But it holds off restarting for all but the longest traffic light sequences. Only on warmer days, when the air conditioning is running harder, does the engine fire up again soon after i-Stop has shut it down.

In addition to the disable button, you can keep the engine running for that quick jump off the line if you don't relax your brake foot. Keep it tensed and hold the brake pedal lightly, and the engine will keep running.

As we discovered in our recent medium car comparo, the SKYACTIV-G four-cylinder sounds sportier than practically any rival in the segment. It also generates plenty of torque across the rev range and will pull away from a standing start cleanly, but with real verve. At the engine's redline, the transmission won't automatically change up a cog in manual mode, but will kick down at lower revs – which seems slightly illogical...

Otherwise, the Mazda's blend of accessible straight-line performance and tidy handling makes it surprisingly enjoyable to punt along country roads.

The '6' has one of the best ride/handling compromises of any current front-drive family sedan around. In fact, for cornering and exit speeds it will keep up with some highly respected rear-drive sedans – and be more composed about it too. It was, to be frank, altogether more capable carving through a corner than the Hyundai i40 sedan we tested around a year ago. The difference in grip and handling between the two is marked, to say the least.

Steering delivers enough feedback to keep the Mazda precisely on track, and response to driver input is quite prompt for such a large front-wheel drive car. Ride quality, following a stream of recent Euro cars, was doubly good, because it didn't come at the expense of handling or roadholding.

At freeway speeds the Mazda6 was not whisper quiet; a very light growl from the engine was accompanied by a slight rustle of wind and some noise where the tyres met the bitumen. None of it will keep kids awake on a long drive, though.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...

Don't forget to register to comment on this article.