December 2014 turned out to be a great sales month for the full-size crossover sales as well. Most of the large three-row crossovers on this list made large gains in December.
Ford Explorer took a dominant win with 189,339 units sold. Ford aims to capitalize on the success with the face-lifted 2016 Explorer that will go on sale this year. Toyota Highlander made a big improvement in December and for the year, but could not get very close to the Explorer.
Honda Pilot surprised with a strong year close to bump the Hyundai SantaFe from the third place overall. The Pilot was still down over previous year, while the SantaFe improved the most year-to-year. Likewise, the Chevy Traverse finished a successful year hopping over the Kia Sorento into fifth place.
GMC Acadia and the Nissan Pathfinder struggled to keep the pace from previous year, but finished with good numbers. The Dodge Durango continued to improve and grew 6.0% year-over-year. While the Mazda CX-9 continues to struggle.
Full-size Crossover – 2014
| YTD 2014 # | YTD ’14 / ’13 % | |
| Ford Explorer | 189,339 | 6.2% |
| Toyota Highlander | 146,127 | 14.5% |
| Honda Pilot | 108,857 | -14.1% |
| Hyundai SantaFe* | 107,906 | 21.5% |
| Chevrolet Traverse | 103,943 | 7.7% |
| Kia Sorento | 102,520 | -2.9% |
| GMC Acadia | 83,972 | -6.5% |
| Nissan Pathfinder | 79,111 | -10.7% |
| Dodge Durango | 64,398 | 6.0% |
| Mazda CX-9 | 18,496 | -24.9% |
* Hyundai SantaFe sales include three-row and two-row SantaFe Sport crossovers.
Check out this fun and informative TFLcar video off-road matchup between the Traverse and the Durango.
Andre Smirnov is a life-long automotive enthusiast, software engineer, writer, and reporter. He has been writing and reporting at TFLcar since 2011.
