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 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Ford-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 275hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 260hp engine designed by Subaru.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, CX-9 offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mazda does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, 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. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as CX-9 rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Subaru is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 207 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Tribeca, averaging around 11.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (24 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 12% difference compared to CX-9.

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, CX-9 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Subaru 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 Subaru. 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.