Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Mazda and 4 x 4 in the case of the Subaru). The first one has a Mazda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp engine designed by Subaru.

The fact that the Subaru got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Legacy offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mazda does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Mazda with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Subaru badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 626 as average reliability-wise, and Legacy is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as 626 rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.2 out of 5.

Mazda is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 202 kilometers per hour, 14km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 626, averaging around 8.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to Legacy.

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, Legacy beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Mazda offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.