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CX-9 Navigation SD Card

The trim and card-family details below cover United States 2016–2020 cars. Canada retained the original system through 2021.0, Mexico through 2023 as an interface candidate, and Australia on selected 2022 trims. Order any regional card by VIN because map databases and part numbers are region-locked.

The slot is in the armrest compartment, nearly flush

Section titled “The slot is in the armrest compartment, nearly flush”

The navigation SD card slot is inside the center console armrest compartment, on the front wall near the USB ports. The card seats deep in the slot, nearly flush, so on a card-equipped car it’s easy to miss: shine a light into the bin if you’re checking whether one is installed. Press the card once to release it (push-push spring), don’t pry it.

The slot takes a full-size SD card. OEM cards are 8 or 16 GB in an encrypted format that won’t mount as FAT32 on a computer.

Grand Touring and Signature shipped the card; every trim is navigation-ready

Section titled “Grand Touring and Signature shipped the card; every trim is navigation-ready”

Every 2016–2020 CX-9 runs the same Gen 6 head unit (7-inch screen on Sport, 8-inch on Touring and up) with the same slot; what varies by trim is whether Mazda put a card in it.

TrimCard from factory
Grand Touring, SignatureYes, navigation standard
Sport, TouringNo card; navigation sold as a dealer-installed SD card accessory

On Gen 6, the card is the license. A Sport or Touring gains full factory navigation by adding a genuine card; Mazda’s own accessory catalog lists the nav SD card for all four trims. No head unit swap, no firmware change.

United States 2021–2023 cars use the newer system and a different card family. That cutoff does not apply to Canada 2021.0, Mexico, or every Australian trim. See the worldwide matrix.

Use the BHP1-66-EZ1 family for United States cars

Section titled “Use the BHP1-66-EZ1 family for United States cars”

United States 2016–2020 CX-9s use the BHP1-66-EZ1 card family. The trailing letter is the map revision (BHP166EZ1M, EZ1N, EZ1U and so on), and newer revisions supersede older ones, so order by VIN through a dealer or parts.mazdausa.com rather than matching the letter on your old card. Mazda documents BHP1 as a North American family, but Canada and Mexico have different model-year cutoffs. Other regions use different part numbers because the number also encodes the map database. Order by VIN instead of transferring this United States table to another market.

Mazda lists the card around $400; street price at online Mazda parts counters runs lower. Cards at $20–50 on marketplace sites are counterfeits; the platform page covers how to spot them and why they fail.

Map updates through Mazda Toolbox

Section titled “Map updates through Mazda Toolbox”

A new card includes three years of free map updates through the Mazda Update Toolbox (mazda.welcome.naviextras.com): plug the card into a computer, the Toolbox app rewrites it, reinsert it in the car. After the free window, updates are paid, roughly $85–140 per region, and stay locked to the card’s original region.

Clone and used-card warnings

Section titled “Clone and used-card warnings”

The card VIN-locks to the first vehicle it runs in, after 100 km (62 miles) of driving. Two consequences:

  • A used card from another CX-9 won’t work unless a dealer re-codes it. The eBay card pulled from a wrecked Grand Touring is locked to that car’s VIN.
  • A sector-by-sector clone of your own card is a valid backup in the same car. Clone it before the original wears out, not after.

Pull the nav card before any firmware update. A card left in during a flash can be corrupted, and on a CX-9 that’s a $300+ mistake. The sequence is on the firmware update procedure page.

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