SUVs Compared | Mazda CX-90 vs Honda Pilot vs Grand Highlander

You've come to this video for next level information on the Grand Highlander, the Honda Pilot, and the Mazda CX-90. This concept was pitched to me by Jack. He's like, we should compare the newest three-row SUVs for families and people that really need them. And then he decided he was going to disappear to California and then to Germany to drive Porsches. So I'm left doing the dirty work of trying to explain to people like myself why these are important and which would you possibly choose and the pros and cons of each. So I'm going to talk about the interior exterior, then Jack's going to go in the shop pre-recorded segment, and then we're going to take each one of these for a drive and we'll come to some conclusions. So hopefully there's something here for you to learn. Let's start with the interior and exterior. And since I'm in the Honda Pilot comfortably, we're going to talk about the changes to the 24 model here. This is all new. It's based on the MDX architecture for their larger vehicles. It is a front wheel drive setup with an on-demand system. And the big changes here is the exterior is far more boxy. It is a little less feminine looking. It has that more truck look, which every brand seems to be doing. It is very simple. It has a good presence on the road. It does have good visibility in here. There's a lot of glass. You don't feel like you're suffocating or kind of like just trapped in this cockpit, which is great. And the big thing that the Pilot does excellent is its usability. If you watch my long-term video, you'll know right away that in terms of door storage, this multi-tiered approach gives you enough for yourself. And then there's still plenty of room for the other passengers. So the passenger, basically everybody that has their own seat in here has plenty of room. There's tons of USB connectivity. There's wireless charging. The way that you are able to configure the seating in here is very simple. It's a minimally frustrating cabin because all of the controls are physical. There's not an abundance of electronics to trip you up in your daily usability. And that's why the Pilot of this generation is amazing without feeling just overly generic. The way that the second row is functioning is very good. There's a ton of space back there. And the way that the pockets are designed in the back to put a phone or a tablet, so the back passenger doesn't need to have a rear entertainment system. Their phone becomes that way. The control of the HVAC in the back is good. And if you opt for it with the upper trims, you get heated seats in the back. The center seat can be removed and then put in the trunk or just thrown out if you don't use it. But it allows you for the captain's chair feel, but also having a true like bench seat in the second row, which is great. Third row is pretty functional, although it's not as big as the Highlander. The usability-wise, this splits the Mazda CX-90 and the Highlander in an amazing way. The highlights are its interior usability, its comfort, and almost no gimmicks on the interior space. I'm going to head into the Highlander and we're going to talk about that. Now the Grand Highlander steps up the game to a full three-row SUV that is almost like a body on frame truck. You have to go to like a Tahoe or Suburban or an Escalade to get this type of space. Other than the Atlas and the Traverse, it really it's really the biggest on the market. And it has that upscale feel to it that you're looking for. There's more flair on the interior in terms of design. The outside again is kind of trying to do what Honda is, making it look more truckish versus minivan. And it still has the same mechanical formula, front wheel drive with on-demand all-wheel drive system. So they're doing similar things, it's just more space on inside. It feels like a much bigger vehicle. It sits higher, it feels like it sits much higher. But it also has, you also feel a little bit more trapped in it than the Pilot. It doesn't have the nimbleness feeling to it when you're sitting behind the wheel trying to get adjusted. The seating position in the Highlander doesn't seem to be as configurable as the Pilot. And the comfort level is a little bit reduced for taller people in there. Again, it's just like the ergonomic setup of the Highlander isn't as good, but they maintain all the physical things much like the Pilot. Traditional door handles, multi-tiered storage in the doors, the storage is enormous in this vehicle. You are absolutely floating in here. The updated infotainment is really good. The infotainment is far superior, honestly, in usability and functionality and updatability than the CX-90 and the Pilot. If you're looking for the best infotainment of the bunch, that's it. And there's still physical controls for the HVAC. Again, getting in the second and third row is the best of the bunch. It is just, it's a big vehicle overall. If you're looking to maximize the space, if you truly do have, you know, two kids or more, or you're putting family members in the third row, this is the one that you want. There's just going to be some trade-offs that we're going to talk about during the drive. But let's get into the CX-90. The Mazda, from the interior and exterior, is a much more special vehicle. Mazda is pushing to go more luxury without carrying a luxury price tag. And the CX-90 can start at a lower price tag and then go up to $60,000, which makes this and the Highlander the most expensive, where the upper-end Pilot maxes out at around $53,000. So these have a bigger stretch than the Pilot does. The Pilot is the budget alternative, although functional. The CX-90 stands out in the fact that the exterior and the interior have a massive wow factor. And I had this argument with Jack. He's like, well, it's great from like three feet away, but when you touch everything, you know, it's not like a Porsche. There's truth to that. It doesn't have the German solidness to it. It does feel a little, has a little bit more of that tin can feel to it. But I'm going to be honest, for when you look at it for $50,000, what they were able to do with the interior design and look of it, it feels special. It's a vehicle you look at. It has a road presence when you're on the inside, namely with the loaded trim level with the interior, like design and material choice, namely compared to the Honda. It's like on another level. And if you're looking for flair and you're looking for that uniqueness and design, the Mazda CX-90 is really unrivaled. It feels so special. And that's one of the reasons why I love it. And they've managed to keep all the physical controls of the other two cars. It's, it's just usability wise. It is great, but the negative part and going rear wheel drive, it's the only true rear wheel drive platform of the three. You trade off a lot in usability, namely in the center section of the car, the center console. There is, it's such, there's so much wasted space. The depth of the storage is bad. The wireless chargers on a rake where your phone slides out easily. The door storage is, you know, compared to the other two cars is minimal. It's almost like you're pushing towards sedan levels of usability in this versus, you know, the, the Grand Highlander or Pilot. You can use it almost like a minivan. And that's where it becomes tiring. Once the way that it looks wears off, second row comfort, second row room, when you have bigger passengers is greatly reduced. The third row is the smallest of the bunch by a large margin. You're basically going to leave that third row of seats down. The overall usability and capacity of the CX-90 is its biggest weakness. And, you know, you could have the argument, if you just have one kid or you're a small family, the CX-90 is going to do you well. You don't need a monster vehicle, but you're still buying a three row. And, you know, it's many things that it does good. It's the most flawed in terms of being a three row usability or three row vehicle, but I still cannot get over how special it feels. And to me, that's almost worth buying it over the other two cars because it doesn't feel as NPC and soulless. The Mazda really put a lot of time into that vehicle, and I think they're going to make improvements as it goes on. The last thing I'm going to talk about is the audio system testing for those that care. When you look at the graphs of all three, there's a standout. The, the CX-90, despite, you know, when you listen to them back to back, you're like, oh, it's better. It's not noticeably better when you listen to it. But when you look at the graphs, it definitely, it has the lowest harmonic distortion. Other than having a 300 hertz suck out in the mid range, which is kind of like seat position dependent, the CX-90 has the best audio system by far. It plays cleanly loud. It still sounds good soft. It doesn't have, it has a bass elevation. It is bassy, but it's not boomy like the Pilot is where it just, it overwhelms you. The crossover point isn't as noticeable as the Grand Highlander and the Pilot. When you look at those charts, you can clearly see the crossover dip. I mean, there's this huge rise in bass and then it transitions off from the sub to the speakers and it's like it all disappears. The Highlander comes in second because the harmonic distortion is the lowest and the graphs are very, very similar to the Honda Pilot. The only thing is that the Highlander audibly, forget the graphs for a minute, sounds the thinnest of the bunch. It tests the best or second best here, but it sounds worse than the Pilot because that mid range has just these strange drops and you hear it regardless of EQ. But I will still rate CX-90 the best. The Highlander tests the second best and the Pilot tests the third, but they are so close, the Highlander and the Pilot, that most people are not going to notice the difference. But we're going to head in the shop. Jack's going to give you the crash course on these three cars before we take them for a drive. In the shop with three three-row SUVs, we're starting with a vehicle we're under, which is the Mazda CX-90. The CX-90 is their first vehicle on their rear wheel drive Skyactiv architecture. It is arguably the most premium platform of all three of these SUVs. It's double wishbone front and rear and it is a rear wheel drive architecture and it's the only one with an inline six. The advantage of a double wishbone architecture is the dynamic camera gain in the front end and its overall driving dynamics. This is also the closest one to a 50-50 weight distribution. The thing to note is the way they calibrated all of their electromechanical systems like steering and suspension is to be the most linear thing possible. They have slow steering so you can make mid-corner corrections. They want minimal head toss, which means this is actually one of the firmer SUVs in the test. It's also the most sports sedan-like in dynamics. Obviously, it's still a three-row SUV. Drivetrains. You have three different options. You can get this as a PHEV or plug-in hybrid four-cylinder offering, which gets the best fuel economy, or you get two different inline six options. Their low output 280 horsepower variant or this S, which makes 340 horsepower. It's good for zero to 60 in the mid-sixes, which makes it the second fastest vehicle in our test and it gets the second worst or the second best depending on how you look at it. Fuel economy and it puts its power down through their own eight-speed automatic gearbox. This vehicle from a service perspective is fairly covered up. The most expensive out of the three to work on and actually keep on the road. Mazda does not have the dealer network of Honda and Toyota and honestly their new i6 or inline six engine architecture is new, which means probably expensive. The next vehicle we're going to talk about is the Grand Highlander. The Grand Highlander is the biggest vehicle in this test. It's on Toyota's global architecture known as TNGAK. It is a platform that they scale out from everything from the RAV4 to their Grand Highlander to their Lexus variant, the TX. It is strut front, multi-link rear, does not get adaptive dampers, just like the Mazda. In fact, none of the vehicles in this test get adaptive dampers. It is tuned to be soft. It is a vehicle that, while yes, it is quite quick given its drivetrain options, which we're going to talk about in a second, it's all about trying to make sure that this is a soft three-row barge you can throw your family in. They did prioritize body structure. One of the things that they learned from Hyundai and Hyundai's failings with the Palisade and Telluride is they wanted to make the second and third row part of the body structure as rigid as possible to make sure you don't make your second and third row occupants seasick. That's something Mazda also worked on as well. Now, when it comes to the actual dynamics of the vehicle, it's soft, it's boaty, it's probably the worst handling of all three of these, but there are some perks, and that is drivetrain options. It gets the best fuel economy. You have a base corporate four-cylinder 2.4 liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine, which is in the base model. You get a 2.5, and then, of course, you get the Hybrid Max or the i-Force Max engine, which this vehicle has. It makes the most power. It gets very good fuel economy. It does not have a CVT, thankfully, and it does 0 to 60 in the mid-fives. It is funny that the worst handling out of the three has the most power, and it has e-all-wheel drive. That's the other thing. The base model gets an on-demand setup, and the two hybrid variants get e-all-wheel drive. Now, with that, let's talk about the Honda Pilot. This new platform is shared with their larger vehicles, like the Acura MDX. In its current form, they offer the latest generation J-Series V6, which is now dual overhead cam. The change was made to not only help with fuel economy standards, but help the engine meet emissions regulations. All trims use the latest 10-speed auto. All-wheel drive is optional up to the EXL trim level. The all-wheel drive system is a torque vectoring unit, which helps to make the SUV feel less front-wheel drive biased. For this generation, the Pilot is far more refined and quiet, but now it's time to take all of these for a drive. Grand Highlander, the other extreme in driving dynamics, no body control, and maximum power. 400 foot-pounds of torque in this bad boy. Oh, let me, forgive me, I got to turn off traction and stability. What about sport? I am already in sport, Mark. By default, you're in sport. This is easily the fastest out of these three three-row SUVs, and it is by far the softest Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Just hit the no-wake zone, bro. This thing's got e-all-wheel drive, Mark, so it just sorts everything out. I could Baja jump this bad boy, and it'd be perfect. Oh, my God, dude, this thing is... When you get over the hills, especially, you don't particularly notice the float in it, and, you know, on a regular suburban drive, but you're right, this thing is definitely floaty, for sure. When I was at the launch of this car in Hawaii with Chris, I rode in the second and third row, because that's the whole point of this thing. Yeah, right. The whole point of this test is, you know, you want a three-row SUV because you need to haul around your family, specifically your kids, and that's the one weak thing about this car, is despite it riding so soft, if you're in the second and third row and you're prone to being car sick, you're going to have a bad time in this car, and that's, you know, if you live in a flat area with not a lot of rolling hills, forget I said anything, but that is something that is going to come up if you're going to be road tripping in this car, but it does ride great. Yeah, let's, yeah, I think that's the counterpoint, right? Like, what do you, what do you want, and I think for a majority of the public that are buying this for what it is, it definitely does need to be more firmly sprung, and I'm sorry, softly sprung, but the other, the other factor, too, that I think you need to think about a bit, and which we haven't tested, is when you put six people in here, you know, you have a lot of weight on this, and I think some of the suspension, some of that softness will cancel itself out because you'll have the the weight on the suspension, you'll be more in the rebound of the shocks, I think the ride quality might improve a little bit, and personally, let's just get this out of the way, I would rather have this than what they did on the CX-90 as a family vehicle. These two are the two polar opposites of one another, a pilot falls somewhere in the middle, we're going to talk about when we drive the other two, if you are looking for that ultra soft, you know, powerful three-row that theoretically gets the best fuel economy, I mean, it's been so cold and rainy and miserable during our time with these vehicles that they all have sort of gotten the same miles per gallon, at least around town, low 20s and then mid-20s, but I mean, half the time I've had these things, it's been 19 degrees out, yeah, but this is kind of real world conditions, you know, wet, like this is how you're going to be using an SUV to haul and to just do this, bobbing around back row, yeah, and you know, the funny part about this too is because we just drove the TX, yeah, and the TX, and I tore it up back here, they did a really good job with suspension calibration and all-wheel drive calibration on that, and this just is like, it's the same car, really, but it's not, it doesn't drive anywhere near as good, it doesn't have a Lexus driving signature mark, gotcha, gotcha, so I think there's room, the bottom line is there's room for improvement, this is the least enjoyable to drive if you like driving dynamics, but it is the softest and it is the fastest, and it is the biggest out of all three of these, it is, the hybrid max drive train is actually really good here, it's really good, and you know, this is huge, and you look at it, and I think it surprised me when I drove it for the first time, like holy ----, this thing is enormous, with a four-cylinder, what is it going to do, and to have it be faster than the CX-90 specifically, I mean, it's to be expected with the Pilot, it's just a regular naturally aspirated V6, but man, this thing definitely moves if you care about straight line acceleration, but it does not turn, no, and in the wet, at least on these standard tires that are on this, or in the snow, it is dynamically the most compromised, and that, I mean, honestly, in any of these vehicles, if you hit snow, and you get below that sub-freezing temperature, you should probably be throwing snow tires on it anyway, but in the factory tires on this car, just due to the fact that it isn't all that dynamic to drive, and the all-wheel drive system is not all that capable, it is the worst vehicle in inclement weather. I mean, a lateral acceleration, it seems like longitudinal, like off the line, you don't have any problem getting, and I think that's how most people are, they're going to be backing in and out of their driveway, if they're getting stuck, they're going straight, I don't think anybody's going to be like rally driving this thing, but it is something to note, like going straight, getting unstuck, all-wheel drive system performs, and that's really how it's designed anyway to do. All right, Mark, let's go drive the Takumi crafted vehicle next. All right. The horse is ready. I don't know why you get nervous. Yeah, I got way more nervous than the Grand Highlander, this thing has way better body control, you know, it doesn't feel nearly as cumbersome to drive, and I know that they spent a lot of time trying to tune suspension to make this thing feel much more dynamic and engaging to drive compared to a traditional three-row SUV, and let's just run through that list really quick. You have the Highlander, you have the regular Highlander, you have the Pilot, you have the Telluride, Palisade, what else am I missing? The Atlas. The Atlas. The wonderful Chevy Traverse. The Exploder. The Exploder as well. So when you look at this segment, this is the only thing in this segment doing what it's trying to do. Double wishbone, inline six, and trying to take a brand that is not known for premium products and bring it upmarket, and I'm going to be honest, if you're comparing this, this is the only vehicle really that you could theoretically compare or they want you to compare to like an X5 or an X7, you know, Q7. If you're doing that, as we're going to talk about in a couple minutes, it fails pretty horrifically in that regards. Like this is an inline six and it does not feel like an inline six, it is not smooth, it's slower than the Grand Highlander, it doesn't get the best fuel economy, and it's not the most refined drivetrain, and it doesn't ride as well as a premium product. But in this class of vehicle, the Pilot and all that stuff, it does have some pros. This is like the polar opposite of the Grand Highlander in that it's prioritizing and sacrificing ride quality for being a little bit more engaging to drive, and you can get it to yaw out as you experienced. But let's be honest, this is a three-row SUV. How many people are going to take their three-row SUV and try to yaw it out on a back road and get it to slide around? Yeah, I think that's the kind of confusing part about this, and I know we talked about in our original video, and when you look at it, and I know we talked about this before we started doing the drive, when you look at it on the outside, the inside, and on paper, it's got every single box checked to make an engaging three-row SUV, and when you do hustle it around, like you would never do, because that's not what, you know, that's not why you're buying this, but when you do hustle it around, it definitely has the most, well, aggressive stability control too, but I mean, it definitely has the most ability to drive in an aggressive manner that you're not just not going to do. You know, you're not going to try to step out the rear end, which it really doesn't let you go all the way, and then there's all the little things start adding up to it once you get over the surface level things, and I know there's been a lot of software updates, and there's going to continue to be a ton of TSV and software bulletins to fix a lot of things that are going on with this, but still, like, we're in a vehicle that I'm getting ghost alerts for things that are not around us from the 360 monitoring, and you know, my laundry list of problems with this car that I didn't touch about in the shop, the plug-in hybrid variant has issues, there's weird drivetrain noises out of this thing. Like, again, it does not sound like an inline-six. Between the fake engine noise and the off-throttle, almost, like, weird NVH and vibration, it's just, it's not a smooth drivetrain. It's not, and you know, like, I noticed it driving too. When you really get it loaded up, that right there, there's a... Oh, it's got an open diff in the back. It's got an open diff, but there's drivetrain resonance that's coming off here when you get it loaded up at a certain frequency. There's, like, a mid-range resonance, and I don't know if they don't have the frequency isolation, like, set up, right, to kind of remove some of that, but when you add in the fake engine noise on top of it, not only do you have that resonance, you have, like, these standing waves, and then you have the resonant frequencies counteracting each other, so you get a vibration in this weird tone from the fake engine noise. Like, all these little things don't seem to be completely sorted out, and that's really the best way I can explain this. It's from transmission logic is a little still herky-jerky, the engine refinement isn't there, the suspension refinement, unless you're really, you know, to Dave's credit, when you're driving this thing, like, stupid, it's pretty funny how well it gets around given its size. Given what it is, yeah. But, you know, again, like, you're not, you're not doing that. You're not going to drive like that, and it's still big. You can't overcome the weight, you can't overcome the size, and then you don't have all the electromechanical systems, like some of the premium vehicles, to help get you through. So, without adaptive dampers, without active sway bars, without rear steer, all the things that could shrink the size of this thing down, they're fighting against themselves, and I know we said in the original video, like, I want this thing to do well, I want them to do better, and I think they have all the bones to do it, but it's just not there yet. This car needed more time to bake in the oven, and, I mean, some of the basic stuff as well. I've had some regular people that aren't crazy car enthusiasts drive these things, and under regular driving conditions, because the steering is so slow, like, why is this so cumbersome to drive? Particularly if they're coming out of something like the Highlanders and the Pilots of the World, which do have artificially fast steering, but in a big three-row SUV, people aren't really looking for traditional one-to-one inputs. They're looking for something that feels nimble to them, and if you're not driving at the limit, the CX-90 does not feel as nimble as its competitors. I'll be curious to see how far they can go with some of the software fixes for, like, all the little bugs, some of the weirdness, and, I mean, there's definitely some weirdness and steering and some of that other stuff, but I don't know how far they're going to be able to go before they do, like, a mid-cycle refresh or manufacturing improvements, but I'm really pulling for them to make those better, and if you're a Mazda supporter, which I know a lot of people that are buying this, they're coming into, like, we want to support this, if you want to support it, I think they're going to use the miles that you're putting on this to try to figure out what they need to change, but, you know, I'm going to talk more about in the final thoughts. I love what they did, and I hope they can continue to improve it, because this could easily go to the top of the list, but it's not there yet. All right, Mark, let's hop into the Honda Pilot, all right. Mark, we're starting the third vehicle in our three-way comparison test in the real world. You are in a Honda Pilot Elite. Yep. You're stuck behind a John Deere tractor doing, or combine, forgive me, doing 20, 30 miles an hour underneath the speed limit, and you're late to work, and this is the best thing about this vehicle, is unlike the other two, when you're behind the wheel of it, you don't think about anything. No, you don't. You're the one that told me this. You went to the launch of this thing. Let's see if I can make a risky maneuver. No, I definitely am not. You know, when I decided when I woke up this morning, death in a Honda Pilot getting around a John Deere combine was not high on my list. Yeah, this is, this is not something that you're going to want to do, is get murdered behind this, but when you came back from the launch event, you had told me that this is one of the best three-row SUVs you've driven, and it's not something typically you would say, namely coming from a Honda, and so I want you to explain to me why you thought this was so great. So the last Pilot, despite having a V6, the J-Series, the VTEC, blah, blah, blah, was horrible other than that V6, right? It was not a particularly great SUV, and SUVs from when that car was developed have moved on quite a bit, right? And even the Honda engineers acknowledged that. So I went into this not knowing a whole lot about it with minimum expectations, or minimal expectations. When I left, I realized you basically are getting a $40,000 MDX. You're getting an MDX for $20,000 off MSRP, with now minivan levels of usability when it comes to door pockets, rear seats, getting into the third row, and unlike things like the Telluride and the Grand Highlander, it is not a miserable experience to drive. It threads the needle between the CX-90, which has that near sport sedan levels of driving dynamics, and the Grand Highlander, which has no driving dynamics, but is huge. This finds that heavy medium. The TBD rear diff does a great job getting into other corners. The V6, while yes, it is the slowest out of all three in a straight line, does sound actually better than the inline six of the CX-90, and the gearbox, while it has some of the problems that our long-term MDX had, at least according to your time with it, is fine. It's not as herky-jerky most of the time as the CX-90's eight speed, and it's probably no better or no worse than the six speed in the Grand Highlander. I really do like this vehicle, and a lot of the people I've met who've bought this since our original review all say the same thing about it. It is an amazing appliance. It looks boring. It's not necessarily the most exciting vehicle on the inside, but when you get into it, it does everything well. It rides properly. It doesn't make you car sick. If you want to have one percent of fun in it, you can. The V6 is ultra, ultra stout. So yeah, to kind of continue on, I think you covered basically everything. I don't really have to say much other than the engine, despite it being slightly slower than the other two, there's a level of refinement that comes from this. There's no fake engine noise. It just has that seamless V6 feel that the other two cars don't have. Despite the inline six and the Mazda being everything it should be, it just doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel anywhere near as refined, and that elevates this quite a bit. You don't have the rattly four cylinder, and for me, the transmission stuff that is kind of a carryover from the MDX, I'll be honest, because this is not supposed to be a sports car or fun driving car, you don't notice it as much. The things that it doesn't do particularly right in terms of gear logic, you don't notice because you're not driving it like a total asshole, and you're probably 99% of the public are never going to notice some of the gear hunting things and the gear protection mode or the protection mode it goes into when you crank it over and hit the throttle. Those are things that I can completely forgive because the ride quality, to your point, the trade-off between sport and comfort is so good, and it proves that where Mazda had to go to a rear wheel drive architecture to try to get that premium feel, they were able to do it with front wheel drive, and it's amazing what a torque vectoring rear diff can do in terms of driving dynamics, and we felt it in the MDX. For a majority of the public, this is an extremely nimble feeling without feeling slow. They've managed to reduce the size of this by just that calibration of the rear differential makes it really, really engaging to drive without being a total snooze fest, and you combine the fact that it does everything utility-wise, the best out of the three in terms of usability, even with the Highlander. It's the least frustrating vehicle to drive, it's the best vehicle to drive, and it's the most refined in so many ways compared to the other two. Compared to the CX-90, and that's the vehicle that you can maybe argue the dynamics with, up to eight tenths, it's every bit as good. You can maybe make the argument at nine tenths or ten tenths, where no one is driving the three-row SUV. The double wishbone architecture, the rear wheel drive layout do a better job in and out of corners, but 99.9% of the time, you're going to really enjoy the pilot, you're going to like the way that it feels nimble, and it's properly sprung. It doesn't wallow, and then it absorbs all the impacts far better than the CX-90 does. Yeah, and it's proof that you don't need the adaptive dampers in this car the way that they did it, where the Mazda definitely needs it. And to your point, like, yes, does the Mazda have better dynamics at, like, the extreme limit? Yes, but that's sacrificing basically everything else to do that, and they couldn't find the balance below that. So even, I would say, that better dynamics is completely lost in the fact that it lacks the refinement it needs. In this class of car, it's pointless. It's crazy. So I think we've summed up a lot of this, of why this is essentially, I mean, you know what we're getting into in the Final Thoughts, of where each vehicle is. This is our favorite one to drive. Yeah, by far, by far, and in this class of vehicle, you don't have to make excuses because you know what you need out of a three-row. It's not trying to pretend to be anything else other than just doing its job appropriately in almost every condition, and that's why I really enjoy driving it. So with that, Mark, let's head on the Final Thoughts, where you are going to summarize all three vehicles pros and cons, assuming we don't get killed in this interception. I'm going to be very careful, and I'm, like, my defensive driving skills have been honed over about 13 years of playing GTA. Yeah, of playing the GTA 6 trailer over and over again. I've learned how to drive. Oh, perfect. Now, it shouldn't be a big surprise the outcome of this test. I'm going to start in third place, and this is the Mazda CX-90, and it's not because there isn't potential there, that it's not an amazing machine in terms of looks. Exterior and interior design is just top-notch here. Like, the best of the bunch. Best of pretty much every three-row SUV until you go to a luxury car, and they do it because there's so much attention to detail. They realize how important this vehicle and this platform is to the brand, and it really shows. Like, you're proud to be in this car, and you feel a sense of pride of ownership of being in it. So you might ask, you know, why is this third? And first model year problems, first generation problems that the Pilot and the Highlander don't suffer from. It's trapped in its mindset of trying to be luxury, but trying to be commodity at the same time, and you can't really do both. You really have to hunker down and make it what it really is in a three-row SUV that's not a true luxury product. So everything feels like it needs work from drivetrain refinement, transmission tuning, suspension damping. It needs more of the luxury things, or go back to basics, which they're already too far gone. So it needs adaptive dampers. It needs more isolation in the cabin. It needs more isolation suspension all the way around. I think the drivability part is what scares me the most because we've driven the the hybrid version, which was better, to be honest, than the Turbo S. But the Turbo S, you know, despite it being inline-six and should be the fastest, is not the fastest of the bunch. It doesn't feel as quick. It doesn't feel as, in some cases, as dynamic. I don't know. There's just so many things that need to be evolved and changed on it that this, to me, is 100% a lease vehicle to support the brand for the first couple years, enjoy it for what it is, and know that hopefully they're going to improve things, either over-the-air updates and then generationally, year by year, they're going to make mechanical improvements. It does have the best audio system, some of the best interior design and exterior design. So if you value that, thumbs up there. Second place is the Grand Highlander, and the Grand Highlander is an enormous vehicle. If you really maximize and appreciate size, and that's what you need the most, and kind of its style, it does a great job. It's amazing what Toyota was able to do with a platform that can go all the way down to a small car or smaller car to make it this beast. It shows what you can do, and again, it's the quickest of the bunch, even with the four-cylinder, you know, Turbo Maxx stuff, and its interior space is super usable. Like, there's almost no frustration, much like the Honda, and there's some flair to it. Like, exterior-interior styling, it doesn't feel as hyper-generic as the Honda. Its big ding is it's expensive. The Hybrid Maxx gets, you know, above $60,000, much like the CX-90, and its drivability, despite the drivetrain, and you can, it's a vehicle, you do not do any of this. It has almost no confidence in its ability to turn and handle. The stability control system is hyper-active, so it gets the same dings as, like, the Palisade and the Telluride do. It's too much of a boaty ride, which makes you almost carsick driving it, and compared to the TX, the Lexus that we drove, you can see what they were able to do with the TX, and it solves all those problems. It needs to take some of that tuning, in terms of body control and ride control and drivability from the Lexus TX, to make this better, and probably would put it above the Pilot. But the Pilot is in first place because it has the right type of ride control, body control, without being a boat, but it's still soft. You can turn this thing quickly, and it doesn't feel super slow in the steering like the Mazda. It doesn't feel like you have to chuck it in. It just is really nimble for what it is, and the way that the rear differential works, the torque vectoring unit, it gets you through corners like you wouldn't believe a front-wheel-drive architecture does. It's just lively to drive, while being soft and doing the three-row things great. The interior is super easy to use. The running costs are going to be low. It's the only naturally aspirated version of all three cars, and, you know, V6 and all that stuff, it's one of the last of its options. The only ding here with the Honda is it's the most NPC. It definitely feels the most soulless and generic, and I would say that the transmission tuning is probably the, well, probably close with Mazda, but it lacks some refinement there. It does have a little bit of jerking off throttle, and, namely, when you get higher up in the gears, it's got so many gears, but it just doesn't feel as smooth as, like, the ZF. In the case of the Toyota, the Toyota feels way smoother in that regard, but because it's so usable, it's the cheapest of the bunch, giving you the most, it's gonna stay at number one for at least a couple years until the next three-row SUV comes out, but I'm gonna leave it at that. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next video.