C&D nearly perfect? The car was in the shop getting fixed for 14+ days over the 16 months they had it. Being out of service 2% of the time is pretty crappy reliability, and then stranding people by the side of the road because your roadside assistance sucks is not the way to build up good will with your customers. This was covered before:
"Sometimes the infotainment system would freeze at startup; often, the fix was to shut off the CX-9 and turn it on again"
"The dealer also performed two no-charge repairs to address service bulletins from Mazda, including updating the powertrain-control-module software"
"it would later take our local dealer 14 days to fix the running-on-empty problem by replacing both fuel-sending units."
"there were no tow trucks in Mazda*s network that could assist them. Oh, hey, thanks. Glad we waited. "
Eventually, they fixed the issues (I hope). However, that's how you end up with a 1 star reliability rating. I would assume the new ones are better, but they grade on what has happened, not what everyone hopes will happen in the future. Mazda also needs to fix their customer service experience ASAP - leaving people stuck because your roadside assistance network is spotty is bush league - I'd expect that out of KIA in 1995, not Mazda today. Mazda dealers also do Mazda corporate any favors - my local dealer here is a disaster, and the larger one that is an hour away is no better.
That said, the problem with CR's data is that the CX-9 is a low volume car, so the number of responses they have is likely quite small, so the data is probably bordering on statistically insignificant. That said, I know 2 people with newer CX-9's, and they've been to the dealer numerous times...