No, you’re not going to buy a minivan. We get that. You’re aware of the minivan’s superior packaging and value proposition vis-à-vis any three-row crossover. You’d totally drive a minivan (you’re not one of those people whose ego is so precious that you’d be embarrassed to be seen behind the wheel of an Odyssey), but you truly need one of these jacked-up wagons wrapped in cladding like so much bacon around a sirloin. Because, as we understand it, you have children to take to summer camp.
Not band camp or sports camp, and heavens no, not space camp, but the real outdoorsy kind, out in the country on a lake with canoes and archery and mosquitoes bigger than the horses. Sure you do. Kind of like the guy who drives a pickup because he has to make that annual trip to the garden center to load up a bed full of mulch. But we’ll play along, which is why we booked five all-wheel-drive family trucksters for our own trip to YMCA Camp Al-Gon-Quian in northern Michigan.
The last time we surveyed three-row people haulers was way back in 2011, when this segment was still burgeoning. Six years later, it has fully burgeoned—indeed, well beyond its original appeal to families outgrowing sedans and other traditional five-seaters. Today, even hipster parents who dress their onlies in vintage concert T-shirt replicas are entering the three-row crossover market, because Pink Floyd kid has friends.
Choosing our roster seemed difficult at first, as there are now more than a dozen competitors in the segment. Clearly, we had to invite back our 2011 winner, as the Dodge Durango is still on the market and, in fact, relatively unchanged. Sharing its underpinnings with the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Dodge is unlike the rest of this field in that its 3.6-liter V-6 is mounted longitudinally and sends the majority of its torque to the rear wheels. The atavistic Durango can be configured with two rows of seats, but, of course, we opted for three, with second-row captain’s chairs swapped for the bench, reducing maximum seating from seven to six. In GT trim, our Durango carried an as-tested price of $49,065.
The 2017 GMC Acadia is in its first model year of a ground-up reengineering, and the long-awaited 2018 Volkswagen Atlas is brand new, so these also made the cut. A pair of corporate V-6s that match the Durango’s 3.6 liters provide motivation, although the GMC and VW can also be had with four cylinders and, like the rest of the SUVs here save for the Dodge, front-drive models are available. The new Acadia has been downsized from the jumbo first-generation model that GM has been selling since 2006. Like the Dodge, it can be had with five, six, or seven seats. Also like the Dodge, ours was a six-seater with second-row captain’s chairs. We tested a loaded Acadia Denali with a $51,785 price tag. The Atlas finally gives VW a player in this segment and is available exclusively as a seven-seater. Our top-trim SEL Premium model stickered at $49,415.
We also picked the Honda Pilot and Mazda CX-9. This familiar pair saw redesigns for the 2016 model year, making them the next-freshest things coming out of the dining-hall kitchen. Honda’s ubiquitous 3.5-liter V-6 powers the Pilot, which is the only vehicle in this class offering minivan-esque eight-passenger seating. Our Elite-trimmed tester accommodated only seven, in a two-two-three configuration, and cost $48,160. Mazda is the sole carmaker thinking outside the box when it comes to two-box three-row propulsion, using a 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-four as its only engine. Our seven-passenger CX-9 Signature carried a $45,855 MSRP.
Since this was not a kickball game, we told the rest of the three-row crossover market to get lost and we hit the road. After a 200-mile freeway cruise, we sought out twisting country roads to measure handling and later we even subjected these soft-roaders to authentic two-tracks, or rutted dirt paths with weeds growing up in the center and the occasional angry branch intruding into the lane. Truth be told, we did nothing with these vehicles that you couldn’t accomplish similarly in a Camry, provided you don’t mind stuffing the neighbors’ kids in the trunk.
BY+http://www.caranddriver.com/comparisons/three-row-suv-test-vw-atlas-vs-dodge-durango-gmc-acadia-honda-pilot-mazda-cx-9-comparison-test
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