Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / Exploring the 2025 Mazda CX-90, Luxury SUVs and the 2025 Infiniti QX80

Transcript

Exploring the 2025 Mazda CX-90, Luxury SUVs and the 2025 Infiniti QX80 · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: All right time now for this hour's car review 2025 Mazda CX-90.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, I had the 3.3 Turbo S Premium Plus.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: This is a standard SUV seating for six in three rows, all new for 2024.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: One of the better looking SUVs on the market, I say Well balanced overall, attractive, conservative front grille.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: What is he doing down there?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: He's fiddling with his headset, that's okay.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You done fiddling with his headset, that's okay.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: You done fiddling, okay, thank you.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Chrome accents give an overall high-priced appearance.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Rear hatch and booty carries the balanced look, also with lighting beneath the glass.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: What I liked about it overall look gets an A in my book.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: What could use improvement?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Nothing Like the painted wheel.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Well, opening moldings on it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: That was different, because usually the manufacturers these days don't paint them.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The black plastic and it's like a kitchen nut.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Is yours that way.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: You got black plastic.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: No, I got gray Mine's an accent of the gray, so yours are painted.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, black plastic.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: No, I got gray Mine's an accent of the gray, so yours are painted yeah, oh yeah, painted gray or molded gray, okay, whatever.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Interior highlights Standalone center screen with instrument cluster underneath the sunshade there for the driver.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Alcantara dash accent is attractive but it sure seems to me that could be a dirty point later on in the car's life.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Comfortable seating for six.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Overall design is attractive on the interior, cargo kind of on the small side, with the third row up, which is pretty typical for three rows of seating.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That back seat kids only.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: What I liked.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Attention to the detail is noteworthy.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: What could use improvement?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Infotainment is one of the worst in the business and I have not liked it from the beginning.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I shared that sentiment with our dear friend out on the West Coast, jack Nerad, and he agreed with me.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He said you know they need to do some work in that area.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: 3.3 liter turbocharged engine, 340 horsepower, 369 pound feet of torque, so it doesn't lack in the power.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Eight-speed automatic transmission towing 5,000 pounds Gets 23 in the city, 28 on the highway for a combined of 25.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I got 26.7 miles per gallon over 497.8 miles.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Are you going to say something?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I'll wait till you're done.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: What I liked about it?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: The power.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: What could use improvement?
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: The start-stop feature kills the engine at any speed when the accelerator is not pressed and it's disturbing.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So you're doing 70 miles an hour and you let off the accelerator, the engine quits.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not sure about that.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Transmission shift from first to second is bothersome as well.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: What I liked about it the overall feel of the car is responsive and quick, sports car-like actually, and they've done quite well in the sports car department with the Mazda Miata MX-5.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: What could use improvement there?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Now, base trim price on this is $56,450.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It's not cheap.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Price is tested $57,905.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Base model price is $37,845.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Competitors to this vehicle in base and size Kia Telluride starts $36,190.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Hyundai Palisade $36,800.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: And the Toyota Grand Highlander, which is a new model for them, $42,310.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that these new cars, especially the new ones with the much smaller engines and they're boosting them even turbocharged, mostly turbocharging.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Some have a supercharger, but there's not that often.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: But you got to wonder sometimes about the longevity of it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: How long is that turbo going to last and what does it take to change out the turbo, should it, you know, bite the big one?
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Well, hopefully, if it goes out, it'll go out under warranty.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know you've got three or 36 as a standard.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine that they would put a turbocharger on a car these days from the factory that ain't going to last at least 50,000 miles.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So roll the dice, I guess, and I don't know what it would cost, to change out a turbocharger and I think most of them the turbocharger on the diesels.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: They're in the center of the rear of the engine and you have to lift the cab off of the chassis to change it.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: What?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: You walk into a Ford dealership in the service department and you see two or three of the cabs lifted up.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just easier to get to it and they just don't fight it, they just take it off and get to it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: It's like six or eight bolts.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: You take the rack, lift it up yeah, but you've got to unplug everything.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, well, like us.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Young guys have memories.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: They remember where stuff goes.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: It's color-coded and the plugs are made so that you can't.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: They'll only plug in one way.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Interchange them, okay, well, anyway, I enjoyed the Mazda.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I have my issue with the infotainment system you always have and you're right.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Jack.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Jack confirmed that.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's just me.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: You might not have a problem with it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: All right, let us take a break, shall we Speaking of time?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Time now for Jeff's feature little-known facts about popular car brands.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, and here we go.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: It is the world's best luxury brand tend to lend one thing in common to another.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: They've all been around for a long time and they have stories of their own.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: However, every brand defining highlight is lesser known.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: So here we go.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Mercedes-benz made a 269 mile per hour car in 1938, michael.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: A lot of Mercedes history during the late 30s has been obscured.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: However, its engineers produced some truly remarkable cars during the Wehrkordwagen that's what this is called which set a record of 268.9 miles per hour on the German Autobahn in 1930s.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: The car was based on the decorated W125 race car and it featured a new streamlined body for maximum slipperiness.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Mike, to help set the record, powering the car was a 5.6 liter v12 engine with twin superchargers.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Isn't that great?
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Next one we have is a cadillac designed, uh, called the city car is to rival the mini.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Cadillac is best known for its huge, opulent vehicles, I know, but in 2010, it decided to explore a different direction, aimed at capitalizing on the emerging trend of luxury compact cars in Europe.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: The Cadillac Urban Luxury concept was around the size of a Mini.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: However, it featured an interior as luxurious as the brand's full-size cars.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: The car was powered by a one-liter engine which borrowed from Peugeot.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: The next one is this John's going to love this.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Every Jaguar chassis is brushed with emu feathers.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Oh God, main process.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: That's what's wrong with the damn thing Jaguars.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: They choose to use emu feathers for brushes as they can statically charge and are excellent at picking up stubborn remaining pieces of dust and debris.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: They're also larger and most of the natural feathers are Allowing each one to cover a wider area of the chassis.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: Using emu feathers is significantly more expensive than using regular feathers or synthetic materials, but it claims they do the best job for Jaguar.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: So that's why they made that commercial and the last one we have.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: You didn't know this, but Mercedes motorcycles were created because of a legal mistake.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, maserati, I said Mercedes, it's Maserati.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Where am I going?
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Maserati was taken over in the early.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: A notary public accidentally granted the spark plug manufacturer the legal right to use the Maserati name on anything it wanted.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: So they made a motorcycle.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: They can still use it today, but they don't do it anymore because of legal reasons.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: So there you go Maserati made a motorcycle.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Was it called the Maserati?
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: It was called the Maserati.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It was called the Maserati.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I was headed for you were daydreaming over there.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I was headed for auto history, because that's what Jeff had up there, but that's okay.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: So we had the 2025 Infiniti QX8080.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Now this is the century sensory all-wheel drive.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Now it's all new for 2025.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: It's been 14 years since they did a major update to the qx80 so it's kind of gotten along in the tooth, but it is so.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: It makes it the third gen.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: There's actually four trim levels pure lux, century, the autograph.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: We are driving the century, so it's not top of the line, but it's kind of up there.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: This is a full-size SUV.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: We have the captain's chairs in the second row, so it will seat seven.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: You can get it to where it will seat eight.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Now, this is a full-size.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: This is a big vehicle.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: You know you're into a full-size vehicle when you're driving this thing.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: We have the LED lighting up front, got a big grill.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: The hood sticks way up.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: You've got to kind of look out over it.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: To me it kind of blocks some of the things you can see right in front of you, but it's got a camera system to help you out, got automatic folding heated outside mirrors.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: We got an infinity light path.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: You know some of them have got puddle lamps where it shines down.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: This has got a light path, moon roof, not a sunroof, a moon roof and a hands-free lift gate, rolling on some 22-inch aluminum wheels.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Now you get inside.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: We got the semi-aniline leather seating surfaces so we had heated and ventilated first and second row seating.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: The front seats have massaging.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: The third row is a power folding seat.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, why, why, why?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: they let you have this car to drive well, I'm not sure they let me have it, but I got it, you got it, I got it go ahead.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So we had the dual 14.3 inch displays across the dash.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: So it's a lot of stuff, a lot of information there for the driver and the passenger to see.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: And it's got the 9-inch lower touchscreen control panel.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: It's kind of down on this console.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it and it's really it's a touch but it's got buttons, it has reactive touch points on it and I really like that part of it, but it's kind of down to where it's at.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: I have a tendency to say I'm going to the mail to mail some stuff, I lay it down there and then I can't see where my shifter.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Anyway, it has the heads-up display, it's got a smart rear-view mirror.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It's got a 3D around-view monitor.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Is that what you told me to do?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: No, I was looking at Jeff's.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: I made the mistake of looking at Jeff's pictures there.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: So we had technology, we had the wireless chargers, we had Android, Apple and Google in there for your use.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It had the Clipse Premier 24-speaker audio system and it had the speakers in the headrest.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I saw that yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: It was really cool because when you're talking on the phone it comes right into your ear.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: It's not coming out of the dash, so it makes it easier to hear whoever you're talking to maybe not them.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: In the back, inside the liftgate it had a cargo shelf.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: When I opened it up, put some stuff back there.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: There's a shelf behind the third row.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: That kind of makes it a little bit easier to put stuff in there that you don't necessarily want to stack.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I thought that was a really nice touch Up under the hood.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: 3.5 liter twin turbo V6, 450 horsepower, 516 pound-feet of torque no more V8s, nine-speed transmission.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It will.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: With an automatic it's rated to tow 8,500 pounds, properly equipped.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Epa says in the city you should get 16.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Out on the highway, look for 19.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Combined that comes out to about 17.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I got 17.4.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Costs the 291.1 miles I drove this vehicle.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Speaking of driving electronic air suspension so you can adjust the ride up or down as you want to get in or get out of it makes it real nice.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: The turbo v6 got good low-end power.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Works pretty good.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: You get up into the upper speed that highway speeds that you just normally wouldn't be driving.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: It's a little starts breathing a little hard but it's good.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, but it is a big vehicle around town and when you're parking it, base model price 82 450 oh my gosh.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Base trim price 100 645 dollars.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Msrp is tested 107 215 with a two thousand dollar destination charge.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I thought was kind of strange.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Lincoln navigator if you're looking for something there, this let me hold that one for a minute.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Jeep Grand Cherokee Wagoneer Jeep Grand Wagoneer $84,945, start.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Cadillac Escalade $87,595.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: There's you, juan, I'm in.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: But Lincoln Navigator, same type big luxury vehicle, starts base $99,950.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: So if you're looking for one of these big vehicles, this is one that's really nice and got plenty of power and you really ought to look at it if you're up there in that category.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you, sir today's in real time.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you.