Well, it’s a diesel version of the Mazda CX-7, one of the sportier and better-looking crossovers on the market. Of course, this engine isn’t available in the U.S., where the CX-7 is sold with a thirsty 2.3-liter turbo four—it has returned as low as 14 mpg overall in our hands—or a naturally aspirated 2.5-liter four, the latter having been added for 2010. In Europe, the low fuel economy of the gas turbo model renders it practically unsellable. The company could have added that naturally aspirated 2.5 i SV model to the Euro lineup in an attempt to woo more buyers, but it instead went with a tried-and-true Continental formula: the diesel. And so was born the clumsily named Mazda CX-7 2.2 MZR-CD, which uses a 2.2-liter four-cylinder turbo-diesel. This was probably a wise choice; the 2.5 is really only thrifty on paper, since it has to be squeezed to the max to get this five-passenger crossover to move with any alacrity.
The good news is that fuel economy takes a huge jump. The U.S.-spec 2.3-liter turbo four—lifted from the Mazdaspeed 3 but with a different tune—is rated at 17 mpg city and 23 mpg highway with all-wheel drive and 18/25 with front-wheel drive. The turbo-diesel, by contrast, has a combined rating of 31 mpg in the European cycle, and we believe you can realistically expect 26 mpg in everyday driving. The CX-7 2.5 i SV is rated at 20/28 mpg.
The diesel is equipped with a selective catalytic reduction system for its emissions. A four-gallon tank holds an AdBlue urea-and-water solution, which is then injected into the exhaust downstream of the soot-collecting particulate filter, and the complex and costly technology virtually eliminates oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions. Although the system isn’t necessary to meet the strict Euro 5 regulations, Mazda added it anyway.
