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 Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 320hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 275hp engine designed by Ford.

The fact that the Infiniti got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, CX-9 offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Mazda does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Infiniti with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 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 Infiniti FX rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Infiniti is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 233 kilometers per hour, 52km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Infiniti FX, averaging around 12 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (24 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to CX-9.

Infiniti 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, Infiniti FX beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Infiniti outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Infiniti. 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.