Comments by "Stephen Hendricks" (@stephenhendricks103) on "2019 Mazda CX-9 | CarGurus Test Drive Review" video.

Looked carefully at the 2018 CX-9 (Signature trim.) last spring. The 2019 version differs little. Left out of the review is my primary objection to the CX-9. It provides the most inefficient allocation of space of any crossover of any size. On the outside, it's absolutely HUGE. At 199" long it's among the largest in the midsize class. Only the GM twins (Traverse and Enclave) and the Dodge Durango are larger. It's even larger than the humungous VW Atlas by an inch. Yet the CX-9 has less overall passenger space (135 cf) than the KIA Sorento (154 cf), the smallest 3 row midsize crossover (189"), and less total cargo capacity (71.2 cf vs 73.6 cf) as well. The CX-9 even has less room in the third row seat than the KIA. The Sorento's 10" shorter length makes a big difference in maneuverability in traffic and parking in a garage or on the street. If one is going to give up that maneuverability it seems reasonable to expect some functionality in return. The CX-9 offers none. The CX-9 is very stylish, the result of its long hood and the ratio of the length of the hood to the rest of the vehicle. That's a design trick that's been used by automotive designers for an eternity to suggest potency and performance. Check out the design of sports cars since the 1920's to confirm it. Unfortunately, a more effective and much less expensive route to satisfying the same need is a Viagra prescription.
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Rather than "counterintuitive" I think a more appropriate term is rare, even unique. Obviously, if one owns the vehicle the operation of the shifter becomes second nature. But as far as I know (and I may be wrong) Mazda is the only manufacturer that uses the "push to downshift and pull to upshift" pattern. Reviewers who drive a variety of vehicles and seldom have a particular vehicle for more than a week are understandably struck (and frequently annoyed) by a feature that operates differently than they've come to expect. As far as Mazda's choice "makes perfect sense" to a "manual driver," that's a hard case to make. For most manual shift patterns it applies to shifting from odd to even numbered gears but makes no sense from moving from, say, second to third gear.
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@michaels7984 Well, as Freud is reported to have said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Doesn't change the rationale for the design. Simply claiming that "The vehicle looks good" doesn't answer the question of why it looks good. The more important point is that designing a vehicle that is among the largest of its class with the least "utility" in the form of interior room ignores the "U" in CUV.
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@justinfontaine5539 Yeah, and betamax was a much better videotape format. But in cases like this what is considered "normal" is what most manufacturers choose to offer.
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