Possible new (to me) vehicle
 

So, I have an opportunity to replace my 2000 Blazer LT 4WD 4 door 125,000 miles, runs great poor mileage (15-17) with a 2008 Mazda CX-9 with about 85,000 miles for a family deal, cash. So, this Mazda was used when it entered the family, and it looks really nice, I like the interior and exterior. It doesn't have a sunroof, but whatever. It's eight years newer than the venerable Blazer that isn't near as fancy on the interior but is running really well, except for poor fuel mileage. So, I googl-ed around a bit especially on the CX-9 forum and I saw that it seemed to me that the design of the transfer case (like it doesn't hold a lot of oil and the oil tends to burn up and cause failure) and trans axle on the AWD CX-9 seems to have problems. There was issues with the transfer case failing under 100k miles in both the CX-9 and Ford Edge and other issues with the automatic transmission.

So, on the positive
1 very nice inside
2 newer by 8 model years
3 nice outside
4 more modern electronics
5 a bit better mileage

on the negative
1 having to shell out over $10k or about that
2 mechanical issues?

I'm torn, I'd like to be driving a bit fancier car but then again I like my money in the bank also quite a bit and don't want to buy a vehicle that's not going to go another 80,000 miles or so.

What do? Any of you guys have experience with this vehicle?

You can buy a lot of gas for the $10k the mazda would cost you.

I would think that if the problems were very common, there would be a recall issued. But it is something to think about.

My opinion, keep what you got. IMHO, a paid for car always beats something you gotta buy.