Just a little back ground. I just bought my first new car ever a 08 Mazda CX-9. The reason this is significant is that I have always felt I got more value out of buying pre-owned and I don’t like to take that depreciation hit. My car lineup prior to this purchase was an 89 Subaru Loyale wagon 4WD, 93 Q45t, and a 01 Olds Aurora. The Subaru and Q45 became too much to maintain but I really didn’t want to give up either however drive way space and my wife dictated that I should do so. So far the CX-9 has done a decent job of replace the Subie but not the Q45. I kept the Aurora for a daily driver.
Now back to the title. I consider myself an enthusiast of cars so I follow this site as well as many others and magazines as well. I know that a lot of folks on this site and others are biased on their view of cars what one should buy and drive and this site is no different than any other site or magazine. I trust this site for two reasons. One I believe that not everyone is lying about the cars that they have. Two, I trust that you have actually driven the cars.
I have subscribed to several car mags for the last twenty years and trusted them to a point. That is until I could drive and inspect the car in question for my-self. Before my purchase I researched for about a year on every crossover on the market and all the ones coming out until October of this year. So by September I narrowed it down to a Flex, CX-9, Veracruz, High Lander, Pilot, MDX, Q7 and an Enclave. I eliminated all but two for various reasons. That left me with the CX-9 and Pilot. Even though the Pilot was the last one I drove and thought by all the pics that it was ugly and not very well conceived. But I wanted see what everyone else was saying about it so I reserved judgment, I went back and read what you guys thought as well as other sites.
I have read so many articles and test drives on all the vehicles but I had noticed one thing. Every site I went to and mag I read stated that the Pilot of just a shadow of its former self and that it wasn’t as at the top of class even with the redesign anymore. Criticisms ranged from poorly designed exterior to ugly exterior to very very poor braking. All but Car and Driver which states that it was the best of the bunch because it rode like a “truck”. Now that is a WTF if I have ever heard one. I drove it and it was just a bad experience.
So the question is why did CandD do this? And why so many sites are and mags favor BMW, Honda or Toyota. Road and Track won’t give a Toyota a bad review, and Motor Trend loves BMW or at least the 3 series. I think that the guy from US Today just doesn’t like cars.