- 11,805
- Marin County
It's not as much (~250lbs*ft) but this is also what makes my CR-V hybrid so satisfying to drive. There's just always torque available (well, above 70mph its notably less) and throttle response is nearly instant, which makes it feel so effortless to drive. This type of torque curve is just ideal for these types of cars, IMO.Well, @Keef, that's the whole appeal of the 2.5 turbo for me. If you're cruising on the highway or doing any kind of driving around town, you always have 310 ft-lbs underfoot, and it's instant. You can launch yourself to the gap you need to get to... no need to wind up the engine or anything. It's fantastic. The car feels really light, so much so that when you load it with 4 people it feels twice as heavy. You get a luxurious grand tourer feel, but the light feel is where you get the sensation of sportiness. I imagine that is totally absent in the CX-90 and probably even in the CX-5 as well.
IMO, Mazda kind of screwed the pooch with the CX-90. The product planning was off the mark from the start. They tried to make it an X5, when they should have made it as large as they physically could manage on the new platform. Like new Acadia, Atlas, Grand Highlander territory. The CX-70 should have been the tweener 2-row that slots in between the X3 and X5, going for sporty feel.
I think it's too early to tell. I've seen more of them on the road than I was expecting. It's a pretty unique product...a sporty-ish 3 row SUV with a bona fide platform. I think only the X7 is a valid comparison when viewed from that perspective, and that car is double the price. What Mazda has going for it is that it doesn't really have a direct competitor at its price point. The Telluride is nominally the biggest thorn to worry about, but I suspect that Mazda wasn't concerned about selling the kind of volume the Telluride (or CX-5/ CX-50) does. This car is more about establishing some credentials and I'm not surprised the first year models have some issues. I'd guess that some revised suspension and powertrain tuning will fix a lot of the complaints. I'm fairly certain that Mazda has established this platform as a "can't fail" product and will keep it well funded.
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