Wonder what they meant by *later next year*...
Note that there*s lots of conflicting information out there. A couple months back a dealer told me 2016 and 2017 touring trims and above would be made available at a *discount* and only 2018 touring trims and above would be free, per *what the Mazda rep had told them*. Some other dealers are completely clueless and don*t even know what this retrofitting process is about. Truth is no one really knows but Mazda NA, and we need to wait for official news about how they*ll be rolling this out for the CX-9.
Wish I*m wrong and you do end up getting it for free (mainly cause that would probably mean that I*ll also get it for free in our Miata [emoji6]), but I do doubt that they*ll make it available free for any 2017 or older vehicles.
Having said that... to me, this is worth much much more than the ~$200 DIY investment. Not only you get CP/AA with a much improved interface over Mazda*s, but you also get a stronger USB charging source. So I guess it comes down to how bad do you want it. This had been high in our checklist even before buying our CX-9 in 2016, so I didn*t hesitate to install it as soon as I could put the order in. And the only reason I haven*t spent this money on the Miata is because that*s our fun car and not a daily driver. I*m holding out for official release news on that one... but I*ll probably won*t wait much longer.