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Is the Mazda CX-9 midsize SUV ready to slug it out with Honda Pilot and Toyota Highlander as the best midsize SUV with three rows? The 2022 CX-ix, which merely launched, is likely to be the favorite of driving enthusiasts whose circumstances (family, children, carpools) strength them into an SUV when they really wish they were driving a sport sedan. The higher end CX-9 trim line also pushes Mazda up into the near-luxury space.

Here's a await at how the 2022 Mazda CX-9 stacks up, particularly on engineering science, against two three-row standard-bearers — Pilot and Highlander — that ran 2-iii in sales last twelvemonth. The current Pilot first shipped mid-2015 equally a 2022 model; the Highlander shipped in early 2022 and is due for a mid-life refresh in the fall. All three are just nether 200 inches long, the dividing line between midsize and full-size vehicles. The table below compares some of their key tech features. Surprisingly, all iii are holdouts on Apple tree CarPlay and Android Auto.

Other top choices among midsize three-row SUVs base of operations-priced in the thirties include Dodge Durango, Ford Explorer (the best-selling midsize SUV in 2022),  GMC Acadia (look for the new 2022 Acadia just aircraft), Hyundai Santa Fe, and the Kia Sorento. Contrivance, Ford and GMC, the Us-flagged entrants, are the ones that feel a bit more big SUV / truckish, which has helped more than hurt sales.

Honda Pilot: the electric current standard bearer

16Pilot_020The third-generation 2022 Honda Pilot (review) has for the past year been the all-time midsize three-row SUV to purchase without spending Acura MDX-Audi Q7-BMW X5 levels of money. It is even so among the best, most tech-savvy three-row SUVs, especially with the affordable Honda Sensing option ($1,000) that provides adaptive prowl control, collision mitigation braking, lane departure alarm, and lane centering. Honda's switch to Garmin navigation (aforementioned every bit Chrysler has used for years) is a wise choice. 4 adults travel in exceptional condolement if yous cull the 2d row helm'due south chair pick; max seating is 8 with a demote seat in row 2. This generation is quieter, roomier, and more refined; the previous Pilot now feels truckish.

At the same time, Honda made some curious choices that turned off a few longtime fans. The 8-inch touchscreen LCD is a annoyance to some because of the glass push button interface, although information technology's less of an result as you become comfortable with voice command. LaneWatch, the passive correct-side photographic camera system, standard on all but entry Threescore, shows cars in your blindspot via the center stack LCD, just LaneWatch is not everyone's loving cup of tea. Honda offers traditional active sonar-based blind spot detection, but simply on the $47,000 Pilot Elite.

Mazda CX 9 Honda Pilot Toyota Highlander table-5

You lot tin can go Honda Sensing (recommended) on the Pilot EX front-drive for $34,480 or navigation on the Pilot EX-Fifty for $37,055; to get both yous need the Airplane pilot Touring, $41,470. The newer Honda Civic (review) has full range or cease-and-become ACC, likewise CarPlay and Android Auto, and nosotros believe Honda will wait to offer that on Pilot at the midlife refresh (2018 models, mayhap 2022). All this makes the Pilot a better tech car if y'all're buying the upper trim lines, Touring and Aristocracy, more and so than the mid-range EX and EX-L.

If you lot're always hauling three rows of people, a better selection might exist the Honda Odyssey, which shares the same chassis. A lot of families won't be caught dead in something with sliding doors, but long trips are more tolerable in the Odyssey. Just proverb.

2016 Toyota Highlander: popular, mainstream

2014_Toyota_Highlander_Limited_Platinum_04The Toyota Highlander (review), like the Pilot, runs forever. Most buyers choose it to haul up to vii or eight in comfort. Even in its third year, in that location'south a lot of tech, even a hybrid Highlander that goes for $51,000. Like Honda, much of the tech is reserved for the upper trim lines that run well into the forties. The center console holds 38 12-ounce drink cans (information technology'due south a tech feature because information technology tin can hold a laptop or multiple iPads.) Easy Speak is a PA system that mutes the infotainment in rows two and three and lets the driver tell the kids, over the rear speakers, to piping downwardly if there'southward likewise much racket. Rather than CarPlay or Android Auto, Toyota says it will develop SmartDeviceLink, a variant of Ford AppLink, that lets yous view and control smartphone apps from the center stack. In that location's a broad shelf beyond the nuance, with a cutout leading to the USB jack beneath — perfect for your cellphone, modify handbag, or wallet. Toyota sells the Highlander with 4- and six-cylinder gasoline engines as well equally a hybrid that tops $50,000. Shorter than the others, the third row is tight on legroom except for younger kids.

If it'south non the sportiest crossover, it handles daily carpooling and summer vacations well enough to be the second-best-selling 3-row SUV. The Highlander gets a mid-cycle refresh this fall with a 2022 model that is heavy on commuter assists: frontward collision alert, automatic emergency braking, pedestrian braking, and a surround view monitor. Adaptive cruise control still will non be full-range. The specs tabular array beneath reflects the 2022 Highlander model.

Mazda CX-9: the driver'due south crossover, now plusher

Mazda is the go-to company for sedans and crossovers that handle well. As for the merely-released CX-9 crossover, recall poor man's BMW X5. The top trim line has a cockpit with rosewood trim and Nappa leather seats. Mazda's Commander cockpit control bike pays homage to BMW iDrive and Audi MMI. The upper trim levels take adaptive cruise control and a head-up brandish that is unique to mid-cost crossovers. Mazda'due south i-ActivSense driver assists also includes bullheaded spot detection, lane difference warning / lane keep assist, and automatic highway-speed and city braking. On a test drive, it aggressively self-braked while turning a corner in stop-and-go traffic and encountering a stopped car ahead; it probably could have traveled some other five feet before braking, but better safe than sorry.

To be competitive on NVH (noise, vibration, harshness), Mazda added 53 pounds of sound insulation under the carpeting and installed front acoustic glass make the CX-nine quiet at highway speed. Despite the padding, the 2022 model weighs 198 pounds less than the previous CX-nine and 287 pounds less for the version with i-Activ predictive all-wheel-drive. i-Activ is Mazda's term for the AWD's electronics that monitor 27 inputs 200 times a second for cycle-slip, rain or snow, lateral strength, and terrain changes to send the correct power to the right wheels in the menstruation between the automobile senses loss of grip and the driver does. Information technology'south particularly useful in winter driving and works equally well or better than mechanical torque vectoring in snow and ice.

The engine used to be a 273-hp V6. At present information technology's a turbocharged four-cylinder that produces 227 hp (250 on premium fuel) versus 185-270 hp for Highlander and 280 hp for Pilot. But Mazda biases engine performance toward maximizing torque at lower rpm, making it more than like a diesel engine. To avert turbo lag when starting off, butterfly valves comprehend part of the exhaust stream, increasing the velocity of exhaust gases striking the turbocharger. It works the aforementioned manner every bit when y'all embrace part of a garden hose to increment the speed of the water coming out. Mazda calls it dynamic force per unit area turbocharging.

Mazda CX-9 MY 2022 (May 2022 San Francisco / Sonoma-Napa)

The head-up display worked reasonably well (it could be brighter) and included bullheaded-spot-detection indicators. While automakers say you'll run into the yellow blind-spot-caution indicator in the side mirror when you plow your head to the side mirror, the alert in the HUD warns you fifty-fifty sooner: a sonar/radar looking wave form lights up when a car is detected (lower left icon in photograph above). And if y'all miss that and turn on your directional, the icon blinks and the car beeps. This is a pocket-sized but important step for safety. Only a handful of other cars do this, including Hyundai Genesis, Hyundai Equus, and Kia 900.

Mazda says information technology volition wants to use Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in the futurity, and information technology's possible the new CX-9s could be made retroactively uniform. Concurrently, every trim line (Sport, Touring, Yard Touring, Signature) gets two USB jacks in front, infotainment vox control, Aha, Pandora, Stitcher, HD Radio, text message receive and reply by voice, and E-911 blow notification using a connected smartphone. Touring and up go two more USB ports in the second row center armrest; G Touring and Signature become navigation, Bose audio, and satellite radio. All trims have LED headlamps. None accept CD players; it's dead technology.

Honda-Mazda-Toyota

Bottom line: Which is best?

All three are large improvements over their previous generations in passenger comfort, fuel economy, safety, and technology. They may go out you wishing for features y'all can't nonetheless take: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and so you lot could utilise smartphone navigation on a less costly trim line, full-range adaptive cruise control, and blind spot detection / lane departure warning that offered steering wheel-vibration alerts rather than beeps. (The CX-9 at to the lowest degree lets you change the LDW beep to a faux rumble strip.)

The Highlander sells best amid these 3, 15% more than the Pilot in 2022 and eight times equally much every bit the CX-9 in 2022. The Toyota has fewer things that might exist buyer turnoffs, but information technology also has a fleck less advanced tech (until the 2022 model). Honda's buttonless Display Audio LCD gets mixed feedback and LaneWatch is cheaper to implement than blind spot detection, but it requires the driver to make go/no-go judgments. Both Toyota and Honda can seat 8, 1 more Mazda.

With the CX-nine, Mazda has few if whatsoever shortcomings that would be bargain killers. Ford has shown turbocharged 4-cylinder engines (EcoBoost) sell, although the competition in a Honda-Toyota versus Mazda confront-off volition note raw horsepower numbers, while Mazda will say, "Let's go for a examination-bulldoze." The CX-9 has a sunroof, which makes is lighter and more than rigid than a dramatic panoramic roof. Comparably equipped, the CX-9 should be a couple g less expensive. The new CX-9 is likely to exist the biggest winner among midsize SUVs because it'south gone mainstream on ride comfort and NVH, retained its sporty feel, may be the best at winter driving, and offers a segment-unique applied science in the head-upwardly brandish. Mazda has the potential to increase CX-9 sales past fifty% if shoppers find the car equally good equally the critics say.