2009 Honda Pilot vs. Ford Flex, Chevy Traverse, Hyundai Veracruz, Mazda CX-9, Toyota Highlander

2009 Honda Pilot vs. Ford Flex, Chevy Traverse, Hyundai Veracruz, Mazda CX-9, Toyota Highlander - Beat of a different Drummond: We compare six family haulers and, amazingly, drown none of them.

BY JOHN PHILLIPS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY
November 2008


When we last visited Michigan’s Drummond Island [“Mud Puppies,” February 2008], we compared nine Lilliput SUVs and quickly found ourselves in over our heads. Which is to say, we sank a Jeep Liberty. See, the island—a short ferry ride from the eastern tip of the state’s Upper Peninsula—is a 25-mile-long series of limestone bowls (which hold water) and cedar swamps (ditto) surrounded by Lake Huron (ditto times a million). Drummond Island, thou art thine own soggy enemy.

This time, we asked Drummond Island Resort’s driving expert, Craig Hoffman, to sketch out a somewhat drier 16-mile loop, two-thirds of which comprised twisty, smooth pavement and one-third of which bumped through the resort’s private off-road facility. On any off-roader’s scale of difficulty, these private trails (notice we said “private” twice?) hover wholly in Wally Cox territory yet still represent pretty much the worst that any owner would throw at his investment. Along this route, we then ran the vehicles back-to-back until the local bowling alley’s neon “BEER” sign lit up.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison_test/crossovers_and_suvs/2009_honda_pilot_vs_ford_flex_chevy_traverse_hyundai_veracruz_mazda_cx_9_toyota_highlander_comparison_test

Mazdaspeed3

Mazdaspeed3 - The new 2007 Mazdaspeed3 is $30,995, and all you choose is colour. Spending $31K sounds like a lot when you look at the starting price of the Mazda3, $16,795. The deal is more convincing when you see that the cheap car has 148 hp and 135 lb.-ft. of torque and the Mazdaspeed3 has 263 hp and a whopping 280 lb.-ft. of torque. It uses the same 2.3-litre, turbocharged, intercooled engine as the Mazdaspeed6 and the CX-7, both much bigger vehicles. It is a Viking war-hammer of an engine for a car of this size and price.

The transmission is a six-speed manual that doesn't mind being thrown from gear to gear. So when you make your shifts, keep your right foot on the throttle a little so you don't lose too many pesky revs. Then you can ride the turbo all the way to speeds at which you will need a very good excuse if you want to keep your licence.

Some American magazines are measuring 0-60 m.p.h. times of six seconds, but it is the execution and delivery of the power that make this such a fun car. Precise and almost overly snappy steering, good, pred-ictable brakes and a tight chassis mean it takes only a soft touch to dive into corners and power out of them. Having front-wheel drive, torque steer rears its ugly head, but doesn't take away from the fun.

You get some good visual bits for your money that give the car an aggressive demeanor that separates it from the standard car, but they're not over-the-top. The bits are 18-in. wheels with 215/45 Bridgestone Potenza tires, blacked-out headlights, LED taillights, a low, wide skirt on the front to give it that big, open mouth under the licence plate, a meaty, round exhaust tip that just pokes out of the rear skirt and a kind of shopping-cart-handle spoiler on the top of the tailgate that is just on the verge of being too big, but looks good anyway.

The feature that really makes the car an easy sell is the combination of speed and utility. The rear seats fold almost flat, and with the hatch open, you can move furniture if you need to. It is only a four-banger, but in the city, the numbers say it will get 11.8 L/100 km -- high for a car of this size -- but a more reasonable 7.6 L/100 km on the highway. If you think of it as a performance car, it's pretty hard to get mad at the pumps.

It would be hard to have more fun for 30 grand, which is likely a big factor in its taking the Best New Sports/Performance car award from AJAC for 2007. It beat out the Volkswagen GTI and the Saturn Sky Redline. It deserves the award not just because it is a fast car, but because it is a reasonable car as well.

2008 Mazda CX-9 Grand Touring

2008 Mazda CX-9 Grand Touring - Introduced for the 2007 model year, the CX-9 gave Mazda its first-ever entry into the full-size-SUV market. Looking like an inflated version of the nifty CX-7, the CX-9 traces its architectural roots to the front-drive Mazda 6 sedan, although the structure has obviously been stretched and strengthened for this far bigger vehicle.

The engineering work yielded a unibody that’s arguably the best in its class for structural rigidity, which in turn yields benefits in ride and handling, two of several areas where the CX-9 gets high marks.

The parent company, of course, claims things like the “Soul of a Sports Car” and “Zoom-Zoom,” the athletic dynamism that allegedly separates each Mazda product from its competitive herd. It’s not untrue to say that the CX-9 is agile, especially when measured by the water buffalo standards of the full-size-crossover class.

We should also note that agility expectations in this growing class are escalating steadily, as exemplified by GM’s new crossover trio—the GMC Acadia, the Saturn Outlook, and the Buick Enclave. And we’d say further that when it comes to fancy footwork, the CX-9 trumps them all, another plus on the active-safety score sheet.

At introduction, the CX-9 was propelled by a then-new 3.5-liter V-6 supplied by Ford, with 263 horsepower and 249 pound-feet of torque, the same engine that has more recently helped to make the Ford Taurus (previously known as the Five Hundred) a much more desirable offering in the full-size-sedan market. Hitched to a 4400-pound SUV, though, forward progress becomes a bit more deliberate: Our test of a front-drive ’07 CX-9 measured a 7.8-second 0-to-60-mph time and a 16.2-second quarter-mile at 88 mph.

Nevertheless, the CX-9’s V-6 has expanded a bit to 3.7 liters for 2008, and that bumps output to 273 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque. And this, in conjunction with the CX-9’s outstandingly responsive six-speed automatic transmission, reduces its 0-to-60 time to 7.3 seconds and improves quarter-mile performance to 15.7 seconds at 91 mph.

The other good news here is that the more powerful beast also seems to be no thirstier in the fuel department, although this, like agility, is a relative matter. The ’08 CX-9 carries EPA fuel-economy ratings of 16 mpg city and 22 highway, which are the same marks the ’07 model would get with the 2008 EPA test method. In our hands, the 2007 model yielded a dismal average of 16 mpg. This time around we recorded 19 mpg—not exactly Toyota Prius territory, but a significant improvement.

Demerits are few. Third-row legroom could be more generous, although it’s better than average by class standards and mitigated by fore-and-aft second-row-seat adjustability. Ride quality can be a little choppy on warty pavement with the 20-inch-wheel option, and like most crossovers based on front-drive platforms, towing capacity is modest: 3500 pounds, and then only if the vehicle is equipped with the optional towing package.

As you’d expect, pricing is similar to that of competing vehicles. The CX-9 is a smidge higher than a Saturn Outlook, model for model, and a bit lower than a GMC Acadia. The base front-drive Sport version starts at $29,995. Our top-of-the-line Grand Touring begins at $33,950. Figure another $1300 if you want all-wheel drive, and be careful with the options packages: For example, our tester had the $2500 GT Assist package—DVD nav with voice command and touch screen, a rearview camera, a power liftgate—and a $1760 package that added a power sunroof, an in-dash six-D changer, and a Bose stereo.

Those two packages, plus pearlescent paint ($200) and Sirius satellite radio ($430), added up to a $38,840 front-drive CX-9, which begins to feel pretty expensive. In closing, let’s take another look at the thesis question: Is big more attractive when it’s quicker? Hey, you still have to ask?

2007 Mazda CX-7 AWD Sport

2007 Mazda CX-7 AWD Sport - In any case, it’s beginning to look as if the trend might reverse, with car-based crossovers evolving the species from big old trucks back into carlike wagons. Not completely, perhaps, but in growing numbers. Mazda says it has research to support that contention, particularly among married couples between the ages of 30 and 40 without children. Hence the appearance on these pages of the CX-7, a vehicle that makes considerable use of existing technology to provide the responses and agility Mazda was looking for in its crossover.

In fact, Koizumi showed us slides of two design proposals: one the way it looks in these pictures and one with a thick, forward-leaning C-pillar. Either would work, we think, but only this one has the tricky kicked-up rear-greenhouse line. Under the swoopy skin are components sourced from other Mazda models. The turbocharged 2.3-liter engine is straight out of the Mazdaspeed 6 but for a revised turbocharger for improved low-rpm response, and it makes 244 horsepower, 30 fewer than in the sedan. The six-speed automatic is shared only with the V-6–powered Mazda 6.

The windshield, for example, has a 66-degree angle, making it the raciest glass in the segment. The steep rake required some relocation of the front-seat occupants relative to the engine compartment, but not enough to turn the Mazda into something like the late and unloved GM DustBuster minivans. It was enough to call for small quarter-vent panes, however, which work well to provide visual continuity with the outside world.

The interior is as deliberately detailed as the outside, with titanium-colored trim framing the instruments, center console, and armrests. Soft-feel moldings, carefully tuned knobs and dials, and contoured leather surfaces were selected to match the designer’s vision of craftsmanship, and it’s amazingly good for the price. Even the cloth seats have a fine-grained weave and look like good suit material.

That leather-wrapped hoop is positively connected to the front-strut suspension through a solidly mounted rack, and in our all-wheel-drive CX-7, it felt almost like the helm of a rear-wheel-drive car. That’s quite an achievement in a vehicle that is, in truth, a front-drive car with occasional all-wheel drive. The rear wheels only get to drive when the computer-controlled coupling senses front-to-rear-wheel speed disparities (indicating slippage), and that only happens in low-traction situations. The maximum amount of torque that can be shifted rearward is 50 percent, and the normal operating state is full-on front-wheel drive.

The turbocharged engine works well in this application. Having been massaged to deliver better low-rev boost than in other applications, the Hitachi blower puffs life into the inline-four at low revs, even at comparatively small throttle settings, wafting the car off the line as if it had a V-6 in it. Mazda’s direct-injection system (which pressurizes fuel at 430 to 1600 psi versus a normal port-injection system’s 40-to-65 psi) allows the retention of a fairly high static compression ratio of 9.5:1, and this combines with the low-rev boost to banish virtually any trace of turbo lag or low-down sluggishness.

With 244 horsepower at 5000 rpm, the CX-7 AWD Sport hauled its 3920 pounds to 60 mph in 7.9 seconds and on through the quarter-mile in 16.1 seconds at 87 mph. Those are perfectly respectable numbers, but there are some quicker tall wagons out there, such as the Toyota RAV4 (6.3 seconds to 60 mph) and Subaru Forester 2.5XT (5.9). Neither of those can match the CX-7’s 0.84-g skidpad figure (Subaru, 0.75; Toyota, 0.79), though. Consider also that we averaged 14 mpg during testing, well below the EPA’s findings of 18/24 mpg.

The rest of the time, the CX-7 acted as if it were a sports car, with well-restrained ride motions, tightly arrested body roll, decisive turn-in, firm and progressive brakes, and eager throttle response. Zoom-zoom, indeed. Mazda ought to find more than a few guys who go home saying, “I changed my mind about that MX-5 and bought this so you and I can both enjoy it.” Hey, buddy, your secret’s safe with us.

The CX-7 is available in Sport, Touring, and Grand Touring versions with either front- or all-wheel drive. Among the various options was one we didn’t expect of a car that starts at $24,310 (four-wheel-drive models start at $26,010), and that was a nine-speaker Bose stereo and power sunroof for $1585. This audio system really kicks, with enough bass response to satisfy the most tone-deaf headbanger.

2007 Mazdaspeed 3

2007 Mazdaspeed 3 - Mazda is a company with a rep for taking care of asphalt jockeys. Low-carb curb weights, spry handling, and approachable sticker prices are the norm under its tent. We’ve been fired up by new Mazdas before, only to be disappointed. Two recent Mazdaspeeds only rated “medium fun” on our scale. Deficient in horsepower and refinement, a Mazdaspeed Protegé finished third of four in our May 2003 comparo “Serial Thrillers.” And a Mazdaspeed 6 dove for fourth of five in a February 2006 comparo [“Everyday Heroes”].

The Mazdaspeed 3 shows that the company has been listening. The midget Mazda 3 wagon — 26,896 sold in 2005, or 28 percent of total Mazda 3 volume, which includes the brisker-selling sedan — gets walloped with the turbocharged (to 15.6 psi) DOHC 16-valve 2.3-liter direct-injection four-cylinder engine from the Mazdaspeed 6 and Mazda CX-7. Mazda figures its wagon buyers are younger, more often male, more impetuous therefore, and more likely to have use for a 3180-pound car bristling with 263 horsepower and returning just 18 mpg when flogged.

Mazda’s engineers twisted the suspension strings tighter with the goal of reducing wallow in corners and during fast transitions without ruining the base 3’s relatively supple ride. So the front and rear anti-roll bars are thicker by 0.2 inch each. Heavier spring rates (43 percent front, 30 percent rear) and monotube shocks with stiffer compression and rebound tuning cut down the body motions. For all 2007 3s, Mazda has also relocated the front tie-rod links and rear toe-control mounts on the knuckles to wake up the steering even more in corners.

As for the torque steer, Mazda knew it would be Oscar winning. So it wrote the engine-control software with a nuance that links the engine’s output with steering-wheel angle. Boot it with the front wheels centered, and you get the whole can of Spam. If the helm is turned a few degrees left or right, the computer backs off the throttle a couple of percentage points to relax the sideways tug on the nose.

The 156-hp Mazda 3 s wagon hits 60 in 7.4 seconds. The last WRX sedan we tested ran six flat to 60 with a 14.6-second quarter-mile and all four wheels digging [“Cheap Speed, Round 23,” C/D, September 2005]. That’s a difference worth knowing. We also did more than the usual stops from 70 mph, getting 167 feet, and circled a dusty, less-than-perfect skidpad to produce a brag-worthy 0.87 g.

Departing the track, we drove the Mazdaspeed 3 over 600 miles through California hill country and down lumpy expressways. Mazda’s commitment to preserving ride quality shows. Even with 45-series tires on 18-inch wheels, hopping is muted over L.A.’s notoriously stubbled freeways. Big thwacks get eaten by the stiff skeleton and excreted as much smaller vibrations.

Steering assist is by an electrohydraulic rack. Anything “electro” usually puts a pox on steering feel. As in all Mazda 3s, however, the electric motor simply makes the hydraulic pressure instead of providing steering assist. The Mazdaspeed 3 steers smoothly, reminiscent of a BMW. The wheel’s desire to stay at center is distinct. The effort builds just so, heightening as you turn it and sweep through the corner. Jitters and pulses make their way to your hands, the feel of the front tires at work.

Compared with the Mazdaspeed 6, the 3 feels buoyant, scrappier, like the 6 but after its stomach has been stapled. And the Mazdaspeed 3 looks every bit a swashbuckler. On our scale, this one rates maximum fun.