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2010 Car Comparison: Ford Flex v GMC Acadia v Hyundai Veracruz

By Jim Gorzelany

The Competitors
From the 1950s through the 1970s, station wagons were the favored mode of transportation for growing families. These were supplanted by minivans in the mid-1980s. Families loved the tall-roof designs, seating for up to seven or eight, and handy sliding rear doors that made it easier to load the little ones in a crowded suburban parking lot. In turn, the SUV boom of the 1990s siphoned young families away from minivans, by now tainted with a “soccer mom” image.

Now we’re in another transition, as unpredictable fuel prices and yet another shift in market preference has many buyers rejecting traditional truck-based sport-utility vehicles. The choice is now the so-called crossover SUV. These are built on car rather than truck frames. The advantages: lower ride height, easier handling, added comfort, and superior fuel economy with no less utility in terms of passenger and cargo volume. Crossovers do sacrifice the ability to tow extremely heavy trailers or traverse the toughest off-road trails. Neither compromise is of much consequence. Only a small percentage of truck-based SUV owners ever actually pulled big trailers or ventured from paved roads.

Three of today’s top three-row crossover SUVs are the 2010 Ford Flex, 2010 GMC Acadia, and 2010 Hyundai Veracruz. Acadia and Veracruz were introduced as all-new models for 2007, while the Flex debuted as an early-2009 model. Appropriately enough, Flex replaced the minivan in Ford’s lineup and Acadia is built from the same design as the minivan-supplanting Chevrolet Traverse.

The Similarities

  • The 2010 Ford Flex, 2010 GMC Acadia, and 2010 Hyundai Veracruz are all crossover SUVs built on unibody platforms rather than a conventional sport-utility vehicles with truck-like body-on-frame construction. Front-wheel drive is standard on all three, and all-wheel-drive is available for improved traction on wet or snowy roads.
  • Each has three rows of seats, with the Acadia accommodating up to eight passengers and Flex and Veracruz up to seven. On all, the third row is best suited for children. Their second and third rows fold down to maximize cargo-carrying.
  • All use V-6 engines: The Flex’s standard engine is a 3.5-liter Duratec V-6 with 262 horsepower and 248 pound-feet of torque. The 3.5-liter direct-injection V-6 in the Acadia nets 288 horses and 270 pound-feet of torque. The 3.8-liter V-6 in the Veracruz generates 260 horsepower and 257 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy is nearly identical: base front-drive versions of the Flex and Acadia are rated at 17/24 mpg (city/highway), while the base Veracruz is rated at 17/23.
  • Each comes with a modern six-speed automatic transmission to help ensure smooth acceleration and maximize fuel economy. All three automatics offer a manual-shift mode, though few owners ever make use of it.
  • All are wagons with four conventional side doors and a rear liftgate. Each delivers a reasonably smooth ride with predictable car-like handling.
  • All come with myriad safety features as standard, including antiskid stability control and head-protecting curtain side-curtain airbags for all three seating rows. Among the numerous available amenities are rear-seat DVD and video-game entertainment systems, iPod connectivity, and road-trip-ready GPS navigation.

The Differences

  • The GMC Acadia is also offered with styling variations and slightly different feature sets as the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse; it is also related to the now-discontinued Saturn Outlook. The Flex is mechanically related to the new-for-2010 Lincoln MKT, though the Lincoln features a different-looking body with gentle curves.
  • Styling of the Acadia and the Veracruz are variations on the swept-back, upscale-SUV exterior-appearance themes popularized by the Lexus RX. The Ford Flex shatters the mold by wrapping itself in boxy, almost retro-looking styling. Its pancake roof can be specified in either white or silver paint that makes it instantly recognizable even in the most-crowded parking lots. In a bygone automotive era, the Flex would unashamedly be called a station wagon and it might even offer faux-wood exterior trim.
  • Flex is the only one of this trio to offer an optional engine. It’s Ford’s twin-turbo 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 with a V-8-like 355 horsepower and a robust 350 pound-feet of torque. It gets this rather large vehicle up to speed quite urgently. The EcoBoost V-6 is offered only with all-wheel-drive and remarkably brings all that power to the pavement with the same fuel-efficiency rating – 16/22 mpg -- as an AWD Flex with the base 262-horsepower V-6.
  • Being a General Motors vehicle, Acadia comes standard with the GM-developed OnStar communications/safety system. Among features included with this version of OnStar is automatic crash response, stolen-vehicle assistance, turn-by-turn voice-command navigation, and a hands-free Bluetooth cell-phone interface. A complementary one-year subscription is included; service fees apply after that.
  • The Flex offers a plethora of advanced technology, including Ford’s Microsoft-developed Sync hands-free communications and entertainment system. The navigation system is available with Sirius Travel Link, which provides detailed weather and traffic information, sports scores, movie listings, and local fuel prices for a monthly subscription fee. It’s a nifty system, though the same information (not to mention navigation) is available via any smart phone with Internet data access.
  • The Flex offers an available Active Park Assist feature that helps guide the vehicle into a parallel parking space with more efficiency than the finicky self-parking system offered by Toyota and Lexus. Other unique Flex features include an optional second-row refrigerator that can keep up to seven 12-ounce cans or four half-liter bottles chilled, first-class-cabin-style footrests for the second-row seats and available -- albeit gimmicky -- seven-color programmable ambient cabin “mood” lighting.
  • The 2010 Ford Flex base price range is around $29,000-$43,000. The 2010 GMC Acadia base price range is roughly $32,000-$43,000. The 2001 Hyundai Veracruz base price range is around $29,000-$40,000.
  • The Veracruz boasts the longest warranty with 5-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper coverage and 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain protection. Flex and Acadia include bumper-to-bumper coverage for 3 years/36,000 miles. Powertrain coverage on Flex is 5 years/60,000 miles and on Acadia is 5 years/100,000 miles.

The Winner
Of these three-row crossovers, we favor the Ford Flex. Its lower center of gravity gives it the best handling of the bunch and passenger and cargo room are generous, given the box-like design. Flex is especially impressive when equipped with the Ecoboost V-6, which delivers rocket-like thrust without noticeable delay. The Ford also offers the longest list of novel features. Some are whimsical. Others, like the hands-free Sync multimedia control system, are genuinely useful. If you do need more cargo space than Flex offers, the GMC Acadia is a fine alternative. It’s nicely styled with a comfortable interior and impressive overall performance. The Hyundai Veracruz wants to be a lower-cost equivalent to the Lexus RX 350. In that aim, it falls short for refinement and the kind of available features that tend to dazzle buyers on a showroom floor.