The standard leather seats are ventilated by perforations in the center back and lower cushion areas, but the material almost looks more like vinyl than leather. Also, the seats could use more side support. However, we do like the feature that incorporates the shoulder belt into the seat back rather than having it mounted way up on the door pillar.

We also liked the instrument cluster, with its platinum-colored gauge faces and turquoise pointers that almost appear to light up against the metallic background. Not only are these gauges very attractive, but we found them easy to read, even through polarized sunglasses, which is certainly not the case with the electroluminescent gauge clusters on many other so-called luxury vehicles.

Another nice feature is the large dot matrix shield on the windshield above the rear-view mirror and between the sun visors that helps block direct sunlight through this usually neglected gap. We were disappointed again, however, that the Rainier had only single sun visors on either side, instead of dual visors so you could block the sun both ahead and to the side, a useful feature on winding roads.

The rear seats offer decent legroom but not quite luxurious proportions. However, there's plenty of cargo room behind them: 39.8 cubic feet, in fact. An optional cargo organizer ($165) appears to be an excellent way to keep your stuff from sliding around. When more cargo capacity is needed, the split rear seats can be folded forward to open up to 80.1 cubic feet of interior cavern.