2015 Mazda 6 Tourer 2.2D 150 SE-L UK first drive

The Mazda 6, the Japanese firm’s full-size family saloon/estate, has been given a mid-life refresh for 2015.

In order to keep pace with a part of the market that’s seen plenty of recent renewal, the car has had some exterior and interior styling improvements, powertrain and chassis tweaks, added active safety equipment and extra standard kit.

The exterior styling updates are mainly to top-of-the-range Sport Nav models, which get a bolder-looking radiator grille and a wider chrome ‘wing’ grille bar, as well as standard LED headlamps, LED foglights and new 19in alloy wheels.

All models benefit from an interior refresh consisting of all-new instruments, an updated fascia, a new centre console, a new multimedia set-up and an electronic parking brake.

The powertrain and suspension changes are focused on improving mechanical and rolling refinement. Extra sound deadening has been added and new dampers and bushings have been specified for a softer, quieter ride.

Standard equipment on entry-level SE-grade cars now includes heated door mirrors, 17in alloys, a DAB radio and Mazda’s 7.0in touchscreen multimedia system with MZD-Connect online and social networking functions.

The full-house Sport Nav version comes with heated leather seats, reversing camera, Bose surround audio, European sat-nav, keyless entry and a new head-up display. Plenty of kit for your £26k, just as Mazda suggests.

The new active safety systems, meanwhile, are offered as an option on Sport Nav models. They’re bundled to include adaptive LED headlights, lane keeping assist, driver attention alert, blindspot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert and rear smart city brake support.

Mazda’s apparent intention was to make the 6 a more mature, refined and technologically sophisticated prospect. Whether you think that was called for depends on your perspective – but it has worked well in some departments. Not well enough to force a massive reshuffling of the class order, but well enough to widen the car’s appeal and keep it broadly competitive.

Our test car was a 148bhp 2.2-litre turbodiesel Tourer, in mid-spec SE-L trim, with Mazda’s six-speed automatic transmission, so it didn’t have the exterior styling updates of Sport Nav cars – but the new interior is a decent improvement.

For starters, Mazda’s easily smudged, fingerprint-magnet gloss black fascia trim has been replaced by a fillet of leather-faced plastic – and it’s vastly preferable. Applying the touchscreen multimedia screen, rotary controller and heating and ventilation controls of the Mazda 3 looks much neater than what went before, too. The new clocks are a bit uninspiring, but clear to read.

And while the sprinkling of richer materials is generally very welcome, the cabin still has as many cheaper-looking fixtures, some hard and inconsistently finished. This is one of the more practical cabins in the class, and it's now better looking and better equipped – but it’s relatively plain compared with the best.

At idle, at low revs and under light load, the diesel engine’s gruffness and vibration are now more thoroughly suppressed. Its main attraction is a fat slug of low and mid-range torque that’s generous enough for the everyday flow of traffic and typical daily use without ever really needing more than half-throttle or 3000rpm.