Cars.com Videos: 2009 Lincoln MKS, 2009 Hyundai Genesis, 2009 Ford Flex

2009 Lincoln MKS: The all-new sedan’s styling is a hit, and the MKS delivers on its good looks with a lot of value for its $37,655 starting price tag, reviewer David Thomas says.

2009 Hyundai Genesis: Hyundai does the impossible, wowing senior editor Joe Wiesenfelder with its first foray into the “luxury” car market.

2009 Ford Flex: The large crossover offers lots of legroom in its spacious cabin, but Joe says the Flex is missing some key interior features.

View and share all of Cars.com’s videos via YouTube.

Suburban Dad: And the Vacation Winner Is...

After more than 2,500 miles, the votes are in and tabulated. My wife and I, along with our three kids, have finished our 15 days on the road, going from Chicago to Rochester, N.Y., then Gettysburg, Pa.; Washington, D.C.; Burlington, N.C.; and home again. We made the journey in four three-row SUVs, including a Ford Flex, Dodge Journey, Mazda CX-9 and Honda Pilot, and each was as idiosyncratic as my kids.

First, we'll take a look at the stats from our trip, which seems a lot longer on paper than it did in person:

• 2,706 miles over 15 days
• 50 hours (more or less) behind the wheel
• 145 gallons of gas
• $568.75 spent on gas
• Average gas mileage of 18.67 mpg (which, frankly, is higher than I expected)
• $3.49 a gallon was the cheapest gas price we saw (and paid) on our trip, and that was in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
• $4.39 a gallon was the highest gas price we saw (and didn't pay, though it wasn’t far from the cheapest gas around) in Washington, D.C.

Now, here’s how each of the cars fared in different categories:

Cars.com Reviews 2009 Ford Flex

The Cars.com staff has been waiting to climb inside Ford's foray into the three-row-crossover universe for a while now. To say that the Flex is long-anticipated is not necessarily a good thing, though. As reviewer Joe Wiesenfelder notes, plenty of other automakers have beat the Flex to market with similar vehicles, so the Flex must stand apart if it hopes to capture members of the large-SUV crowd who have suddenly become crossover people, thanks to $4 gas. Does the Flex succeed at this? Read Wiesenfelder's full review to find out.

2009 Ford Flex Expert Review

Ford Flex: Gas Mileage and Packing

Leg 1 of our vacation trip is over, and here's the damage:

• 812 miles of driving
• 13 hours (split over two days) in the car with the wife and three kids
• An average of 21.6 mpg
• Roughly 39 gallons of gas consumed
• Average cost: $3.96 a gallon
• Total fuel cost: $153.87
• Highest gas price seen on this leg: $4.22 a gallon in Honeoye, N.Y. (south of Rochester)
• Lowest gas price: $3.61 a gallon in Perrysburg, Ohio

Those fuel figures aren't too bad for an SUV of this size. It looks like it's a fairly heavy car, and all those bells and whistles probably drag down the mpg. Those figures (I got about 16 mpg in heavy city traffic on the afternoon before the trip and hit 21.6 on the open highway) are very comparable to what I get in my family's minivan, a 2004 Kia Sedona.

Editor's Note: The test vehicle is an all-wheel drive SEL model rated at 16/22 mpg city/highway. Considering the Suburban Dad was traveling with driver, four passengers and considerable luggage, while using air conditioning, 21.6 mpg is a very good result. The Dodge Journey with AWD is also rated at 16/22 mpg while the Mazda CX-9 AWD is rated at 15/21 mpg. For the record an AWD Flex weighs 4640 lbs. vs. the CX-9 AWD's 4528 lbs.

As for packing the Flex, the split third row allows you to create a flat surface by flipping over one or both halves of the bench. We needed one of the third-row seats for one of our children, so we loaded suitcases and other bags next to it.

Ford Flex a High-Tech Bonanza, With Some Bugs

Most of the people who flocked to look at the Flex couldn't even see inside, and that's where a lot of the SUV's fun can be found. It comes with both Sync, Microsoft's voice-recognition music and phone system, and Sirius' system for navigation and more. You can actually input your destination using voice commands while driving (you can't type it in while driving, so this is your only choice when you're on the road), find local gas stations and see the prices they're charging (using the GPS in the car to fix your location), local movie times, sports scores, regional weather radar and more.

Ford Flex Draws a Crowd

Based on the reactions of many people between Chicago and upstate New York, Ford needn't worry about drivers taking notice of its new Flex. I had a nice couple outside South Bend, Ind., walk up to me in a tollway oasis parking lot to ask me about it ("Is that one of those cruiser cars?"), and a liquor store owner in Honeoye, N.Y., came outside to get the full tour.

While driving in an interstate passing lane, a young couple in a Ford Freestyle pulled alongside the Flex and eyeballed it at 65 mph for more than a minute before falling back. On another interstate just south of Cleveland, a grizzled guy in a beat-up pickup actually did a double-take.

Earlier, I described the Flex as the result of a union between a Honda Element and a Mini Cooper. More than a few people commented on how retro-cool the Flex looks. The white roof with the dark pillars, the horizontal strips along the side and the low, wide stance all drew applause. My wife's aunt even compared it to her '70s-era Suburban, although she noted that the Flex sits far lower.

Based on looks alone, the Flex should be able to stand out in a crowd of look-alike SUVs.

The Suburban Dad's Vacation blogging

Suburban Dad: We're Driving on Vacation So You Don't Have To

Yes, it's true: Suburban Dad, Mom and kids are hitting the road, leaving today on a two-week excursion from the Midwest, through upstate New York, down to Gettysburg, Pa., and Washington, D.C., on to Burlington, N.C., and finally back to Chicago.

Along the way, I'll be filing reports on the four cars we'll be taking on the trip:

• We start with the all-new Ford Flex, the apparent love child of a Mini Cooper and Honda Element, outfitted with all the luxury of a Lincoln Navigator.
• Next, we'll trade the Flex for a Dodge Journey (start cooking up those "Don't Stop Believing" jokes now), which we'll pick up in New York. My wife is already a little concerned about how small it seems, but I'm psyched to try out those in-floor coolers.
• We'll end our Journey by picking up the Mazda CX-9 (Cars.com's Family Car of the Year for 2008) not far from the historic battlefields of Gettysburg, then drive it through D.C. and down to Burlington, where we'll...
• Pick up a 2009 Honda Pilot. I've spent some time in the Pilot, and I think it should be a great capper to our two-week escapade.

Check back with us daily over the next two weeks as we tell you not only how the cars perform, but also how my wife and kids like them, how fuel-efficient (or not) they are and, eventually, which was our favorite vacation vessel.

What Ford Will Look Like in 2010

This morning Ford announced a rather large loss in the second quarter of 2008 — $8.7 billion. Because the company needs to reassure stockholders and Wall Street of its future, Ford has detailed its product plans for the next two years in rather explicit detail. It seems dire economic times have broken through the secretive process Detroit automakers have had in place for decades. Check out our in-depth look at what products Ford will field in the next two years from Europe and North America, and if they’ll be worth the wait. We detail future Lincoln and Mercury products in a separate post.

Is it the Perfect Time for the Ford Flex?

A story on CNN.com today brought up the age-old conundrum for some shoppers: Despite really needing a minivan because it has more space than an SUV with better fuel-efficiency, they fall back on the “I don’t want to drive a minivan” excuse for paying higher prices at the pump. They just can’t give up the utility of the old body-on-frame SUVs for hauling family and cargo, and we guess it’s just that uncool to drive a minivan.

Maybe that means Ford is in the right place at the right time with its all-new Flex crossover going on sale later this summer. Compared to the current truck-based Ford Explorer, the Flex makes a lot of sense. It will save owners roughly $600 a year in gas with fuel economy of 17/24 mpg city/highway, versus the 14/20 of a V-6 Explorer.

Ford Flex Fridge: Have Sushi, Will Travel

Ford did it. It's done. The in-car refrigerator has arrived in the 2009 Flex, and with it a new world in which you will not get sick from the sushi you bought the day before and forgot about.

As a $760 option, Ford isn’t simply giving you a plastic compartment cooled by the air conditioner, which can drop the temperature of a beverage perhaps 20 degrees. No, this is an honest-to-goodness refrigerator that uses a compressor to create chilled liquid that can lower the temperature of a beverage 41 degrees in two and a half hours. It also has a freezer option that can chill to 23 degrees Fahrenheit.

The compartment is small — capable of holding seven 12-ounce cans, four half-liter bottles or two orders of vegetable maki — but the utility is also evident. For drivers who live in hot climates, it might save a gallon of ice cream on the way back from the store or allow drivers to run other errands while keeping raw meat at a safe temperature.

What do we want next? The in-car microwave.