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 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 167hp engine designed by Subaru.

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Legacy offers a marginal difference of 8% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears 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. The same official information place 6 as average reliability-wise, and Legacy is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Mazda 6 rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 2.0 out of 5.

Mazda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 218 kilometers per hour, 13km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 8.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle.

Mazda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 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! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but 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. 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.