^M00:00:01 [ Background noise ] ^M00:00:04 >> Three road crossovers that look screwier than the Mazda CX9 are not hard to find but the real screwy look is the one you'll have on your face when you try to load this one with all the digital stuff you want. Let's take one for a run and check the tech. ^M00:00:18 [ Music ] ^M00:00:23 Our CX9 is in crystal white pearl mica white. It presents nicely from just about every angle, nice looking car, even Mazda's goofy grin corporate front end looks okay on this one and like any good crossover it mostly drives like a car. But if you want to do it up CNET style there are both delights and frustrations. Now the head unit on this car is interesting because it's an LCD that's not too be, what is that 4 1/2 inches, not an NAV LCD even though we've seen them that small like in some Chryslers in recent years and in fact you can't even get NAV in this trim level of the vehicle, you've got to go up a trim level to get that optional availability. But that said this is kind of a nice little head unit, it's a fresh new design from Mazda, you see we have physical buttons on the side that actually correlate to labels on the screen but it's not a touch screen, it makes you think it is but it's not, you've got to use these buttons to address these features on the LCD. Six disc slot changer up here that will gobble up audio discs, MP3 or WMA as you see here with these labels, no Ipod adapter standard or even available, all we have is this Ipod adapter and off jack so it works but it's a little behind the times, no USB either as you can see. However we do have A2DP stereo blue tooth streaming and that's kind of advanced so it's a weird mix of sources here, some are missing that should be and some are here that kind of delight us. Sirius is your satellite radio choice on this guy, again nice readout of information when there's information present like on satellite radio with the blue tooth streaming of course it's pretty sparse because the blue tooth spec doesn't really do a good job of this yet. And of course because we have blue tooth streaming we obviously have blue tooth hands free. Interesting interface here that rotating motif in the middle corresponds to the right hand knob here, again you feel like you want to touch it sometimes but no, you rotate and click to enter like in this case if you want to enter a phone number. And we also have what's called the moon roof Bose package, I love when car makers put two things that have nothing to do with each other into one package so the one you want you got get the other one to get it, but those are both things you want. The Bose audio system is a worthy upgrade here, you see the branding on the speakers there, you've got ten speakers around the cabin as a result. Your tone controls are down here. To take a look at what it will let you do you got audio pilot which is their noise reduction technology, also center point which is their sound stage fielding technology. One thing that disappointed me on this vehicle and I haven't said this in a long time is the rear view camera, now we do have one in this car but...and it shows up on the little screen, the smallness isn't the problem, the crappy quality is, it's really blurry for some reason and even in evening dew, let alone some rain we had recently, that lens gets all covered in water, you couldn't see a damn thing, it's one of the few back up cameras I've seen that's kind of crap a lot of the time. And of course along with this color display on this trim level you've also got that guy up there, an eyebrow display which these guys of Honda are particularly religious about, really good crisp useful information, you know simple but it works. Transmission is one choice only, a six speed automatic, what they call a sport mode...yeah barely...you'll normally just leave it right here in drive but if you gait it over here it's ostensively sportier and gives you manual addressing of the six cogs, I just left it in drive, it worked just as well there. ^M00:03:45 [ Music ] ^M00:03:49 CX9's have a 3.7 liter V-6, 273 horsepower, 270 foot pounds of torque. The MPG is a perfectly good 1622, about what you'd expect when you're pushing a big loaf of bread through the air. Emissions numbers are up pretty unremarkable, 7 for smog and 4 for C02. Higher numbers are better. Our car is front wheel drive but CX9's also come in all wheel drive variants. Driving a CX9 is car like in the right ways, fairly light inputs on the peddles and wheel, the ride is firm without feeling big and ponderous, the automatic's manual mode does let you determine the gears without relative crispness but there's not enough engine in front of it to make it really worth the effort. One good thing is that gear box is programmed to downshift way down when you step on like from 6 to third in just one gulp if you really mat the pedal. Also let's price one of these CX9's, about twenty-nine four is the base but if you want to get up to the touring level that's about two thousand dollars more and that will include that four inch LCD in the screen, the rear view camera you can barely see out of and A2DP stereo blue tooth streaming. On top of that there's that moon roof Bose package, that weird combo, worth it at twenty-two fifty for the Bose audio, more speakers and also of course the moon roof, like it says. You can also get remote start on this guy, a few other small things but those are your big packages to get this done up CNET style, remember you can't get NAV without bumping up one more level to a grand touring and optioning beyond that. ^M00:05:21 [ Music ] ^M00:05:22
