Next there's the SRX audio/navigation interface. The fact that its graphic display is hideously designed is only part of the problem. It features two tones of blue for the "3D" buttons wrapped in lime green highlight surrounds (white when not in use) with marbleized beige and flat gray backgrounds divided by crudely outlined frames, the whole thing looking like a colorblind remedial student's first attempt at building a 5-year old Microsoft FrontPage website. It took my much younger and more technically adept wife three attempts to even tune in a radio station, after quitting frustratingly twice.

The SRX's audio/navigation interface looks like a colorblind remedial student's first attempt at building a 5-year old Microsoft FrontPage website. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press)

The system was initially set to RDS, a feature that seeks out radio stations based on music genre preference. It's a good idea but only a handful of stations in my two-million plus population town could be tuned in causing the scan feature to zip around the band searching and finally landing on the same station - argh! Finally, by simply flicking digital buttons something called PTY displayed all the local preset radio stations. Once there, it was easy to choose favorites by tuning and pressing the desired memory preset directly on the screen. To put things into perspective, Jennifer figured out BMW's old-generation iDrive in about 5 minutes, this one took more than 15 and we still don't know how we got it to work.

At $52,250 base and nearly $80,000 fully loaded, the SRX's refinement leaves a lot to be desired. (Photo: General Motors)

Which begs the question, who is GM trying to sell this vehicle too? According to Cadillac's marketing department the SRX is targeting a median age of 47, 30 percent female, which I'll read between the lines to mean the other 70 percent would be male, with a median income of $184,000. I won't even try to pretend its targeted 54 percent university education demographic will have an edge sorting out its electronics, but only that their kids might.

I presume it sounds as if I don't like Cadillac's new sport utility, but that wouldn't be entirely true. Like I stated above, it's great to drive. It looks good too, at least to me, and it seats seven. But at $52,250 base and nearly $80,000 fully loaded its refinement leaves a lot to be desired, especially when considering both Acura and Volvo make seven occupant contenders that deliver capable performance with higher quality materials and first rate fit and finish.