Motor Trend 2001 Sport/Utility Of The Year

12 New Suvs, 10 Tough Tests: Who'll Win?

By The Editors Of Motor Trend | Photos By John Kiewicz |   |  
More noticeable in day-to-day driving are the anti-skid and anti-spin features standard on the Sequoia. Vehicle skid control, which uses engine and brakes to prevent skidding in a turn, combined with traction control, is standard in both 2wd and 4wd models. Adding the four-wheel-drive system gives you Toyota's Active Traction Control (A-TRAC), which uses engine and brake to stop a wheel from skidding, but then applies that power to the wheels that aren't slipping, to help regain traction. Some editors find the system intrusive-a beeper warns the driver that the system is activated-when slaloming the Sequoia around a twisty mountain road. But A-TRAC does allow relatively fast (for a large SUV) driving of the Sequoia. The system intervenes before the driver can get into a dangerous situation. It only feels intrusive up to the point in which it saves your hide. The BMW X5, too, has electronic sensors controlling engine torque and braking when the sensors detect excessive under- or oversteer. BMW's system, Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), is combined with All Season Traction (AST) control, electronic brake proportioning, Dynamic Brake Control, and the clever Hill Descent Control we described in the Off-Road section of this story. DSC isn't nearly as intrusive on the BMW as A-TRAC is on the Sequoia, of course, because it takes a lot more speed to reach traction limits in the X5. On the driver-attentiveness front, the Pontiac Aztek is the first vehicle to use the latest generation of GM's head-up display (HUD) system, which helps keep the driver's eyes on the road. GM says the new system is significantly brighter and offers more information than past HUDs. It shows vehicle speed, turn-signal operation, high-beam indication, low-fuel warning, a check gauges advisory, radio station frequency, and CD number and track. As a rule, we like (but don't love) HUDs; they seem like high-tech overkill.
Test 9: Performance
This category means different things to different people. To us, it means not only acceleration, but braking and cornering performance, the ability to execute an emergency lane change, and how much off-road and bad-road action a given rig can handle. It even relates to safety. That's why we don't guess: We test, both at our regular paved test facility, and at our giant off-road area.
Numbers don't lie: The BMW X5 4.4i dominates every Motor Trend on-road performance test category. It scored a 6.7-sec 0-60-mph time, a 15.2-sec quarter mile at 91 mph, and a slalom time-62.6 mph-that puts many cars to shame. And it does all this with a great exhaust note. "Wondrous engine symphony" was a common notation. That's no misprint in the chart, the Acura MDX exactly matches the BMW X5 3.0 in 0-60-mph and quarter-mile times. But it takes an extra 16 ft to stop from 60 mph and gives up 2.8 mph in the slalom time. Next up is the Ford Explorer Sport 4x2, which posted an 8.4-sec 0-60-mph time, but could only manage 0.68g on the skidpad and 56.1 mph through the slalom. Farther back, the Toyota Sequoia edges out the GMC Denali by 0.1 sec in the 0-60 time and takes a bit longer in the quarter mile, even though the Sequoia feels sluggish by the seat of our pants. The Denali has a newly tuned version of GM's Vortec 6000 V-8, rated at 320 hp and a whopping 365 lb-ft. But that engine has to propel 5839 lb, compared to the Toyota Sequoia SR5's 5270 lb (the Sequoia Limited with 4wd is 5295 lb).
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