SUV/Minivan Reviews

Zoom-Zoom and Room Too It’s not easy to make a large SUV look stylish, but Mazda has managed to do so with its CX9. It’s sloping hood, upsweeping beltline and open-mouth grille give this sport/ute a jaunty look. While it may appear that the CX9 is just a stretched version of Mazda’s midsize CX7, that’s [...]

The Pilot Soldiers On Unchanged Honda redesigned the Pilot for 2009, so the ’10 model carries on without change, except for some new colors. The current Pilot looks much the same as its predecessor, except for the grille and the headlights. It sports a squared-off look that is reminiscent of early SUVs from the 1990s. [...]

Outback Goes Crossover Subaru is on a roll. The Japanese automaker was one of only three car companies (along with Hyundai and Kia) to increase sales in the U.S. in 2009. Furthermore, they are off to a good start this year. Their redesigned Outback has been named Motor Trend’s “2010 SUV of the Year.” And [...]

Escape Hybrid Leads in Fuel Efficiency If you are looking for best gas mileage in an SUV, look no further than the Ford Escape Hybrid. It gets between 31 and 34 miles per gallon of gas. But this excellent fuel economy comes at a cost. The base price for the Escape Hybrid is just shy [...]

Has Ford Reinvented the Station Wagon? Ford says the Flex “dares to be different.” There’s no question about that. This vehicle is definitely not a minivan, and it is not exactly an SUV either. In some ways, it reminds me of an old-time station wagon. Ford calls it a “Crossover, ” but however you define [...]

RX Hybrid Builds On Strengths This may come as no surprise, but the 2010 Lexus RX 450h hybrid doesn’t look a whole lot different than the model it replaces. In fact, if you were to just give it a casual glance, you might think you were looking at a 2009. Lexus was not about to [...]

Audi Takes On the BMW X3 The new Audi Q5 faces some fierce competition in the luxury-car marketplace. Established compact crossovers, like the BMW X3 have dominated this segment for years. But I had a chance to put on 600 miles on Q5 over a long weekend, and I think this car is up to [...]

New RX Builds On Proven Formula This may come as no surprise, but the 2010 Lexus RX doesn’t look a whole lot different than the model it replaces. In fact, if you were to just give it a casual glance, you might think you were looking at a 2009. Lexus was not about to make [...]

A Tweener Whenever there’s a gap in the Toyota lineup, you can be sure that it won’t last for long. The product planners get all over it, and a new vehicle pops up. Such is the case with the 2009 Toyota Venza. According to Toyota spokesman, Ron Zeinstra, the Venza is designed to appeal to [...]

Practical Mazda5 Grows in Popularity The Mazda5 has the distinction of being the only vehicle in the Mazda lineup with a better sales record in 2008 than it had in 2007. This year sales approached 20,000 units, nearly twice the number that passed through dealer’s doors the year before. The reason for the improvement seems [...]