MDX v. Hummer

I looked back at all the comparisons on this forum and was surprised to see that no one else has compared the MDX to the Hummer After all, Edmunds puts both of them in the 4WD "Luxury SUV" category and both are driven by celebrities (e.g. Ricky Martin's MDX and Ah-nold's Hummer ). Therefore, for the benefit of those of you out there trying to decide between the MDX and the Hummer, I offer my unbiased opinion: MDX is way better!

Sure the Hummer has twice the ground clearance (16.0 in. v. 8.0), but the MDX is more than twice as fast 0-60 (8.1 sec. v. 17.0). And while it's true that the Hummer has more than double the towing capacity (7,646 v. 3,500), the MDX carries almost twice as many people (7 v. 4). Need more convincing? Just look at the all important turning circle stat: MDX does it in only 37.8 ft compared to the Hummer's 53 ft. And the most common criticism of the MDX, lack of stability control, applies equally to the Hummer. Gee, you'd think with an MSRP of $109,834, AM General would have included such an important safety feature

MDX is significantly longer (188.5 v. 184.5), although the Hummer barely edges out the MDX in width (101 v. 76.3) and weight (7,154 v. 4,387). MDX holds a whopping 82 cu.ft. of cargo v. the Hummber's puny 58. The Hummer wins the battle of the front and rear seat headroom (41.6 v. 38.7 and 40 v. 39), but the MDX wins the war of the front and rear seat legroom (41.5 v. 38.1 and 37.8 v. 29.9).

One area where the Hummer shines in comparison to the MDX is fuel economy The big 6.5 liter 430 lb/ft torque monster will get you 546 miles of city driving, and a whopping 714 miles down the highway between fill ups compared to only 326 and 442 miles for the inefficient MDX. Come on Acura, you can do better!

Acura engineers deserve kudos for coming up with a brake system design that allows the MDX to come to a halt from 60mph in only 135 ft, fully 36 ft better than the Hummer-amazing. They also managed to squeeze out more than twice the horsepower per liter from a normally aspirated engine v. the turbo charged Hummer engine (240 @ 5300 for the MDX's 3.5 L V6 v. 195 @ 3400 for the Hummer's 6.5 L 8cyl turbo diesel). Just imagine what Acura's engineers could do if they slapped a turbo charger on the MDX

With an MSRP of only $37,780 for an '02 Touring, the MDX is the clear winner and bettter value. Next week I'll review the MDX v. Kia Sportage