Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Toyota-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 126hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by Mazda.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, RAV4 offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Toyota with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place RAV4 as average reliability-wise, and CX-5 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as RAV4 rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Mazda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 202 kilometers per hour, 22km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (59 mpg), in combined cycle.

Mazda appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, RAV4 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Mazda being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Mazda. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.