CX-5 vs Forester vs CRV
 

Looking for a CUV for my daughter and seem to have come down to these three (likely the CRV in last place -since it did poorly on the IIHS safety ratings).

Does anyone on this formun have any thoughts between the CX5 vs the Subaru Forester?

Thanks

there is a fairly recent poster who lives i think in minnesota, was complaining about the awd cx5 performance in the snow/ice. several posters tried to convince him it was his tires. he finally traded it in on a forester, and said the difference was night and day. so a lot depends on what you are wanting the vehicle for. i have an older outback(2002) that i use to deliver the us mail on a very rural route. the subaru awd system is superior to almost every other awd vehicle, especially during the few ice storms we get in north texas every year. a few years ago, my wife rented one in utah in the winter, and loved it. she said it went anywhere in heavy snow. the awd system is excellent on wet roads, too. so, if you get a lot of weather in your area, take a long look at the subaru. part of being safe is being able to get to and from places when others cannot.

I just drove the Forester and not the CRV (I hate the styling).

The Forester has great visibility and as far as I'm concerned, that is it's best asset. I thought that the interior was right out of 1988... seriously. (Outback interior and ride were much better). I'm still cautious about CVT transmissions and thought that the ride was just "ok"... also a bit noisier IMHO. I found the seat bolsters very soft and in the mid-level trim there was no lumbar support.

I drove the Outback at the same time and found it more quiet and a much nicer ride with a much nicer interior. That said, I found the seats soft as well and no lumbar. CVT again.

I was actually all set to buy a RAV4 which is much improved. Great setup for its mid level trim. Seats were very nice but no lumbar. Not as quiet as the Outback. It seemed like a safe choice- reliability is top notch and the I can walk to the dealer. Good looking too...

I had previously eliminated the CX-5 due to inconvenient dealer locations... then I drove one. I drove a mid-level touring and was SO glad that I hadn't pulled the trigger on the RAV4. I LOVED the seats w/lumbar. Bose and sunroof without having to go to the loaded version appealed to me as well. I found that it drove smoother and more quiet than the RAV4- I was expecting it to be noisier.. but the Bose may have something to do with that!

I also found it much more enjoyable to drive. I really like the simple and clean dashboard. The RAV has some odd stuff going on that will age fast. The controls were harder to see.

Long answer I know... I guess I'm still quite excited. My only gripe (so far) is that the Pandora/iPod and phone functions, while they work, are slightly maddening... until you take a deep breath. In short, I found that it can take up to a couple of minutes of driving for everything to synch up. During that time I just listen to FM and all is good..

I couldn't agree with this more. Tires make all the difference. I live in MA and so I've always had a second set of tires for winter. All-seasons (which I think is on my CX-5) are generally just just "ok" for most conditions. I plan on putting on snows.

In fact I had an A4 Avant with 17" low profile summers on and got caught in the snow before I had a chance to change them... horrible in the snow before the switch.

my reasons for the outback are way different. i could care less about interior, i wanted all weather performance, awd, limited slip, abs, bad road capability, amongst others. a couple years ago, we had a major ice storm, which is not common here. i had to go to the airport to pick up my sister in law, about a 50 mile trip, one way. the whole city was shut down. i passed dozens of 4wd cars IN THE DITCH. was it a hairy drive? you bet. but i made it there and back. near our home the road goes up a slight hill. i passed 2 4wd trucks that were stuck and abandoned. they could not get up the hill. i actually stopped by one to see if there was anyone, then i just drove on, the subaru easily accelerated and made the hill. slowly, but it made it. several times it has come thru with flying colors on snow, ice, and a lot of muddy roads. it has great ground clearance, and excellent cargo capability. so it works great for me

Here are some random thoughts I have after narrowing my search down to the Forester 2.0XT Touring and the CX-5 Grand Touring.

DISCLAIMER... I bought the CX-5 two days ago after a lot of research on a lot of different vehicles.

Subaru's AWD can't be beat. Like someone else mentioned, the interior and the radio are from the 80's. I even had one of the sales guys admit as much to me after I pointed it out. The interior had a lot of hard plastic. The back up camera was on that tiny little screen under the brow on the dash. How hard is it to design a larger screen? Also, that little screen is where some of your driver information is at. For me, it was just too small to really be effective. DON'T get Subaru's nav system. It is horrible! The salesman even told me I'd be better off using a navigation app on my phone. Or if I wanted a built in solution, to get some sort of aftermarket head unit. The 2015's have the option of leaving it out... smart move on Subaru's part.

Before I drove the Forester XT2.0 Touring last week, I thought I was going to hate the CVT, but I actually liked it... quite a bit. Being able to use the paddle shifters to simulate gear changes made all the difference. And when the turbo kicked in, I have to say it had a lot of get up and go... especially merging onto the interstate and passing.

The Subaru EyeSight system is nice, but at $1,900, I don't think it's worth it. I'm sure some will argue otherwise. Our insurance company offers no discount for crash avoidance features (seems stupid not to do so). This system requires you to have smaller sun visors and you lose your sunglasses holder.

The Forester's cargo area has a lot of useful space. The back seat has a LOT of leg room. Headroom all around is plentiful in the Forester.

The things that steered me towards the CX5 are... nicer, more refined interior, really good handling, better gas mileage and most importantly, almost a $5,000 OTD difference between the two. If the price would have been closer, it definitely would have been a bit tougher to decide. The Forester was a more engaging vehicle to drive (with the turbo and paddle shifters), but the best bang for MY buck was the CX5.

There are a few things I wish the CX5 had... auto up/down for all windows, bumper parking sensors, a little more storage up front and under the floor of the cargo area, a larger panoramic sun roof like the Forester's, LED drl's and a tad more punch when you hit the gas. But the acceleration thing is something that will mostly resolve itself once I get past the break in period and I can start hitting the higher revs with the manual shift mode. I'm trying to keep it under 4k turns for now to make sure everything seats properly under the hood.

The CX5 has great handling characteristics (for a compact CUV)... cornering... smooth ride. It's a hoot to drive on back twisty roads. The Bose stereo is pretty good. The interior quality is really good (compared to the Forester). It takes regular gas where the Forester XT takes premium. The cost of ownership is a couple of thousand less with the CX5 over a 5 year period.

The OTD quotes I had for each of these were (both were the top trim level)...
Forester 2.0XT Touring - $34,500
CX-5 Grand Touring (with a couple of add-on's) - $29,700

So far, I'm really, really liking my 2015 Soul Red CX-5!

The difference between a sube and a CX5 is that the CX5 has a part time/reacative awd where the rear wheels don't kick in until the fronts slip.
The true full time awd on sube is just that- the fronts and rears are always given some amount of power. The CX5 system (which really should be thought of as an automatic part time 4wd system instead of awd) lends itself to better mpg. When it comes to real world mpg, CX5 will destroy a sube.
Now, it might seem like the the Mazda system is hokey. However, it isn't as bad as the old Saturn Vue where you'd need half a wheel rotation before the rear kicked in, that was just too slow.
My old '98 Honda CRV had a very crude. non electronic version of what the CX5 has and never got stuck. And, unlike the guy in Minnesota who complained, I drove in a snow area far more challenging than Minnsesota- I drove it around Lake Tahoe, where the roads twist and wind up to 8,000', lots of steep hills and the famous "sierra cement"; snow that is heavy, full of water, not the fluffy stuff that you see in the commercials.
And, get this- at the time, I also owned an Audi Quattro with full time awd and front and rear diff locks. I still prefered the CRV, due to the great clearance.
If the CX5 has trouble in the snow, blame the tires, not the awd system.
I did an interesting test many years ago- I parked my car at the base of a steep hill, gave it gas and observed how well it went up the hill. My results:
Honda CRV- wouldn't move
VW with non studded snow tires- wouldn't move
RWD chevy impala ss with 255-50-17 tires on back (stock wide tires), stock limited slip and cables on those tires- that was the only vehicle that went up and you could really hear those cables working too.
Just goes to show that in some situations, you need cables/chains.

I was also weighing my options between the Forester and the CX-5. After test driving both, I found the Forester was slightly more useful (seats fold down easier, power lift gate, slightly more cargo space), but as other people have said, has an interior straight out of the 1980s, and the external styling seemed a bit dated to me as well. The CX-5 on the other hand handled much better, got better gas mileage, had better styling, and was overall a lot more fun to drive. My only complaints about the CX-5 were that you have to move the front seats forward to fold down the rear seats (something that can be mitigated in various ways) and no power lift gate. For my money, the CX-5 was the better vehicle, but the Forester was also very nice and I certainly can't fault someone for choosing the Forester over the CX-5. I think you can make a good case for either one depending on what's important to you.


Also, as for the RAV-4, I didn't test drive one (though I had initially planned to) because ConsumerReports.org said that it failed their crash safety tests, and that was the reason they didn't recommend it. For me, safety is important and this was a deal-breaker. I also don't like the styling of the CRV, which is why I didn't bother test driving one of those either.


G

First forum post.


I currently own a 2003 CR-V and recently got rid of a 2002 Subaru WRX. I drove both in the same weather. What I can say is this...


Both cars were fitted with the same model of Hakkapeliitta studded snows. The Subaru even with totally shot suspension was much much better in the snow than the Honda. The Suby IIUC has a 60/40 front/rear traction split all the time, that gets moved around as the system detects slippage. The Honda (at least for that model generation...3 generations ago) was basically a FWD vehicle until it sensed slippage, and then it sent power to where it was needed.


For the fun of it, it was a blast to put the WRX into a turn from a standstill with some boost, having all 4 wheels spinning in the snow (but going exactly where you pointed it). The Honda on the other hand would go from understeer to oversteer and was a handful under the same conditions.


The Suby sucked for reliability (Lots of little things, but it also would not start whenever the outside temp was below 15ºF...but would spray fuel all over the exhaust manifold. Lots of smoky fun when and if I could actually get it to start and all that raw fuel would ignite on the manifold. I live in way Northern NY near Canada), while the Honda was the epitome of reliability, hence the reason I currently only own the Honda and not the Suby!

Let me try to put the 4wd / tires /2wd into perspective. There is no doubt that the Subaru full time AWD is a great system. If I had to drive the ice roads in Alaska for a living I would probably own one. As it is, like most people in the US all of my driving is on good roads except for about 5 to 10 days a year. I like driving in snow so if I get up early and beat the plow I can get more snow time. (I am in New York near lake Ontario so we get a lot of snow, it just gets cleaned off the roads)

I have been driving FWD and then AWD for 40 years. in 1992 I was driving a 1968 SAAB with FWD for a living. I was on the road all day 5 days a week and I NEVER got stuck.

I still have a toll road ticket from NY state I90 when I drove from Boston to Rochester in a storm that closed all the roads. There were police barricades at the exit of all the rest stops. If you stopped you stayed for a couple of days. I just kept driving. No problem.

I have waited at the bottom of a hill for a car with 4WD to stop trying and sliding back down, then driven around them and up the hill with FWD and good tires.

The key is tires. Tires are the most important tool for driving in snow. A fwd car with the right snow tires will do better then a AWD Subaru with lesser tires.

If you like the CX-5 and you live in the lower 48 then buy it. get a extra set of wheels, put Hakkapeliittas on it in the winter and have fun.

I have