I'll take my 9 all the way. No regrets. How can Honda and Toyota and others offer ugly or no exhaust systems at this price point?
What do you mean "no exhaust system"??
If you are referring to the "dual exhaust" on the CX-9 vs the single exhaust on the Toyota... this so called "dual exhaust" is more of a visual gimmick on these cars than anything else. The 2 OUTLETs on the CX-9 are just that - two pipes coming out of a
single muffler. Looks cool, but no performance gains. Zero.
If they put one pipe the results will be exactly the same. Toyota is using a single muffler with single outlet pipe. Their V6, with the "single exhaust" is still a very impressive engine with plenty of power, super smooth, nice sound, and proven reliability.
Having driven both cars, i can also tell you that the CX-9 exhaust tone is no better than the sound the V6 Toyota makes. Our CX-9 sounds just like any 4-cyl car out there, nothing special in the exhaust. I personally prefer the sound of the V6.
And to be fair, the dual exhaust outlets on the CX-9, in stock form, visually are very small and look horribly undersized on such big car.
Mazda is using the same size outlets on the CX-9 as the ones they use on the Mazda 2 & 3. They just look tiny on the SUV. I had to purchase bigger diameter exhaust tips in order to fix this look. Looks much much better now.
Still not sure why Mazda could not add the bigger exhaust tips in the factory, especially on the $45K Signature trim.