Lectrofuel, be careful with those reviews. I read the magazine article, they got the "performance" RS model, which no one buys. Why? Because the Traverse is not a performance car. They buy the more luxurious Premier or the LT Leather but few buy that model. Who wants a two ton performance car?
They also pointed out while it fell behind in every subjective test, it won every performance test (so I guess the performance package does something).
"So we dinged it in the subjective categories, but the Traverse was our numbers champion. The three vehicles were neck and neck in every performance test, but the Chevy managed moral victories in acceleration and braking and on the skidpad. When we tallied fuel economy at the end of our 1000-mile odyssey, it won that, too."
In fact, when you took away in the magazine the subjective score of 20 points, where they heavily penalized the Chevy, giving it a 5 while giving the Mazda a 19 out of 20, that was the difference in the scores. You remove that one objective opinion, and all of a sudden the Chevy is in a tie for the lead with the Subaru (the Mazda then took third).
I am not saying the review is wrong - but in this case I felt it was a little flawed. One for picking a model that no one buys (at least, no one in the last generation bought the RS), and then weighing the final field so heavily they artificially created a winner.
Then again, they don't look at reliabliity at Car and Driver - the Mazda is terrible according to Consumer Reports with a much below average for 2017 scoring 60 overall. Brakes, body integirty, and electronics all average or worse after one year. The Traverse in 2017 scored a 67 and its reliablity was average after one year - and only average (its worse score) in only one catagory - brakes.
The only point is - different magainzes value different things. Reviews are biased. I for one put much more into reliablity and test drives than what any magainze tells me. For example, The Kia Stinger is a great car to drive, but that back seat drove myself and my kids crazy (eliminated that hatchback immediately). Car magazine reviews besides Consumer Reports rarely even commented on it.
I think we all can agree the magainzes have their biases including Consumer Reports. The trick is understanding that and not taking their words for face value all the time.