The Mazda CX-9 Predictably Won a Comparison Test of Minivan Alternatives, As Mazdas Do

Shocker. The 2017 Mazda CX-9 entered a buff book comparison test against four comparable three-row crossovers and scored a victory.

That’s what Mazdas do. It’s what I assumed the CX-9 would do when, one year ago, I called the second-generation CX-9 a class leader, asking “is perfect too strong a word?”

Swaying the jury seems to be straightforward business for Mazda. The justification for rendering a pro-Mazda verdict is familiar. “It drives so much better than any of the others,” Car And Driver’s Jeff Sabatini writes of the CX-9, after the Mazda bested the Honda Pilot, Dodge Durango, GMC Acadia, and Volkswagen Atlas. “The CX-9 is nimble and agile,” Car And Driver says. “Weight transfers smoothly in the CX-9,” and, “There is a flow to the controls.” The publication credits the quiet cabin and the attractive exterior, as well.

Also described? The reason 98 percent of buyers in the Mazda CX-9’s segment choose a different vehicle.

Essentially, if you need the three-row Mazda CX-9 to operate as a three-row vehicle, you ought to look elsewhere.

Granted, if you truly need a three-row vehicle, a minivan’s the better option. But we already knew that.

“Because if you have too many offspring — perhaps as few as two — your family will have outgrown the Mazda CX-9,” Sabatini writes. “Its third row is tiny and tough to access, and even the second row is comparatively tight.”

If you need a minivan but have determined that you’re willing to make certain compromises in order to not look like you drive a minivan, the Mazda CX-9 is too small. And it doesn’t matter if it’s agile. It doesn’t matter that, with 310 lb-ft of torque, acceleration is at least mid-pack. It doesn’t matter that the interior, both in terms of design and materials, is stunning. And it doesn’t matter that the CX-9 is an attractive vehicle outside, standing out from a crowd of all too similar crossovers.

Mazda has enough of a problem getting U.S. consumers to consider a Mazda. But in the CX-9’s case, a prospective buyer who actually explores the idea of Mazda ownership after cross-shopping a Pilot, Highlander, or Durango discovers all-around smallness.

Undeniably, U.S. sales of the new Mazda CX-9 are significantly healthier than they’d been in years. That’s not surprising given the old CX-9’s age, the market’s resurgent interest in utility vehicles, and the dramatic CX-9 improvements.

Yet the CX-9 remains a rare beast, with the current pace suggesting around 25,000 will be sold in the U.S. in 2017, well off its peak pace of 34,421 sales in 2011. Compared with rivals — not just a Ford Explorer that can sell as many copies in one month as the CX-9 does all year but also the surging Toyota Highlander and the new GMC Acadia — the CX-9 is a drop in the midsize crossover bucket. And if you think the second-gen model is still gaining momentum, you’d be wrong. June volume fell to a five-month low of 1,699 units, down 11 percent compared with the CX-9’s launch month from a year ago.

It was never Mazda’s intention to sell boatloads of CX-9s in America — global capacity is capped at 50,000 units. But 80 percent of that capacity, or 40,000 annual units, was originally expected to be used in North America, where only around 15,000 CX-9s were sold in the first half of 2017.

So the CX-9 isn’t popular. It may even be less popular than expected. But if you can overlook the fact the Mazda CX-9 is not an adequate minivan replacement, well, it’s best in class material.

[Images: Mazda]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.