FACEOFF! 2025 Subaru Forester vs. 2025 Mazda CX-5: Comparison

What's going on YouTube? Nearly 1 million people last year bought either a RAV4 or Honda CR-V in the U.S. But what if you want to be a little different and you want the ability to actually be able to find your car in a parking lot? Well Subaru and Mazda each present another choice in the compact SUV segment, the Forester and CX-5. The Forester is brand new for 2025 and the CX-5 has reliably been Mazda's best seller for years. So if you're going against the grain, which of these SUVs should you take? Let's go ahead and find out. So first off, let's discuss the pricing for these two family SUVs. Starting with the luxurious Mazda CX-5, we have the fully loaded signature trim. All in, this Mazda carries a price of just over $42,000. Moving to the all-new Subie, its top trim is called Touring and it also comes standard with everything. After destination, its grand total is about $600 less than the CX-5. By the way, if you want to get the best price from local dealerships and access to invoice pricing info for these two models or any new vehicle, we have a tool on our website to do just that. It's a great resource for car shopping, so make sure to check the link in the description for more info. If you're new to our comparisons, we conduct them objectively. We've done our best to weigh the points awarded throughout in major and minor categories and towards the end, we'll also discuss resale and reliability information. But let's go ahead and get into the meat and potatoes. Starting with the exteriors, these two brands have went in completely different design directions. The CX-5, in typical Mazda fashion, goes for a classy and elegant approach. Meanwhile, the Subaru goes for a rugged and outdoorsy look. Flanking the sides of each of their signature grilles, we have our lighting. Surprisingly, both come with extremely premium headlights for the segment that are not only just projector LEDs, but they also have adaptive bending abilities as well. However, it's only the Forester that includes fog lamps. Continuing to the sides, the Forester got even bigger for 2025, which means it's now a substantial four inches longer than the CX-5. Let that be a hint regarding interior space later, but for now you'll find large 19-inch alloys on both the Forester and CX-5 with completely different designs. While not point-worthy, something to keep in mind is that the Forester does have thick cladding, especially around the wheel arches, compared to the body color on the CX-5. So that could matter to you depending on what your taste is. Next up, we have the rears. Their design themes continue, and as far as features, they have spoilers, rear wipers, and exposed exhaust outlets. However, it's only the Mazda that includes a full LED taillight unit. If you're looking to tow, the CX-5 will be the better choice at 2,000 pounds versus the Forester's 1,500 pounds. Now moving on to some of the individual features, you'll find nicely done mirrors. They have blind spot monitoring, heating, LED signals, and in the case of the CX-5, they're even power folding. But these are SUVs that are often used for families, so one really nice thing about these two is that all four of your major active safety features are included as standard equipment. In addition, they even have rear auto braking in these top trims. Finally, their warranties mirror each other identically, and neither of them includes complimentary maintenance. We're off to a tight race so far, and now it's time to compare the interiors. But first, if you're new here, we're brothers and we've been reviewing cars since we were 12 and 16. We started young, and since then we've reviewed over 2,000 cars at every price point. No matter what you're looking for, from our long-term vehicle videos to our side-by-side comparisons, we'd love for you to subscribe to be a part of our car confections family. Let's learn a lot and have some fun with all the latest cars. Approaching both SUVs, they have smart entry systems with pretty nice key fobs. Rainbow Star is also available via their brand's respective applications. Only the Forester has sensors behind the door handle to unlock, and after opening up the doors, you're going to see quite a bit more luxury than you might have expected from these top spec models. Before we dig into the features, let's start with the seats themselves. Nicely enough, both are including real leather seats. The Forester's is finished in a leather and suede mix, and the CX-5 gets a full navel leather seat. That means its grade of leather is more premium than the Subaru. For seat adjustability, both come in at the same 10 ways of power adjustment with two-way lumbar support. They also match each other tit-for-tat with features including seat heating, ventilation, and memory. But now once we're inside the cabins, let's check out the major point category of material quality. In this regard, both have great cabins for this segment with some premium materials. That being said, the Mazda stands out as being one of the very nicest options in the class. It includes real open-pore wood, loads of leatherette, and soft-touch plastic, and wherever you feel feels very well built. It'll take the materials point. After startup, you'll see a pretty big difference. Despite being all new, Subaru still has a traditional gauge cluster design with a 4.2-inch display in the middle. The older CX-5 doesn't have a full digital display either, but it does include a larger 7-inch half-digital gauge cluster with more customizability. Adding to its advantages, it also includes a head-up display, which is something not offered on the new Forester. Moving back past that, they both have heated leather-wrapped steering wheels, along with rain-sensing wipers. And now it's time to evaluate another major interior section, storage. Here the two of them are more similar than they are different. They have reasonably big center consoles, cupholders in front of that, and wireless phone charging pads. We'll call this area a tie, but do know that some of the other options in this segment have more front storage areas. Part of the reason for others having more space is because both still use traditional shifters. When in reverse, you'll see a 360-degree camera system on both the CX-5 and Forester. That's a new feature to the Subaru this year. For climate, both have dual-zone automatic setups with physical buttons for the main temperature adjustment. But if you need to mess with any of the extra controls in the Forester, the interface can be laggy, especially when you first turn on the vehicle. For audio, each has their respected upgraded audio systems. That means that the CX-5 has a Bose system, and the Subaru a Harman Kardon system. Let's go ahead and take a sample. As you can probably tell, both have good audio quality. But we'd give the slight edge to the Harman Kardon and the Subaru. But one of the things most important to buyers nowadays is your in-car technology. The Mazda comes in with a 10.25-inch display, while the all-new Forester adopts a large 11.7-inch display from other Subaru products this year. That's 13% more screen real estate. But more importantly is how you interact with those screens. While the Mazda is technically a touchscreen, that's only available if you're using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Otherwise, you're stuck using the control knob. In the real world, that's a lot harder to use, especially considering that you have to reach a long way. And as far as other functionality, both include integrated navigation systems and wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. As we wrap up the front of the cabins, both have auto-dimming mirrors with garage door openers. Plus, the Forester adds the rear camera ability. Lastly, both have sunroofs to let air in, but Subaru definitely lets in more air with its panoramic style setup that's about twice as large as the CX-5's standard size. Now as we head around to the back seats, remember how I said the Forester is four inches longer than the CX-5? Well, that'll show here. While Mazda claims the legroom is almost the same as the Forester, as you can clearly see, the Forester does have a significant advantage. After spending extensive time with both models, the Forester will certainly have the more comfortable rear seat. Now that that's out of the way, we have quite a few features that once again match each other. Both have two USB ports, rear vents, as well as reclining and heated back seats. Now let's see how much stuff you can bring along with you for the journey. While both have power tailgates, only the Forester gives you a hands-free option. Once they open up, you'll find an interesting dynamic. The Mazda surprisingly has about an 11% advantage behind the second row, but that advantage dissipates with the seats folded and has 10 cubic feet less maximum space than the Forester. As far as other features, they match each other closely. They have spare tires and handles to fold the seats from the cargo area, but only the Mazda seats fold 40-20-40 split to allow for maximum passengers while hauling a long object. This has been a tight battle so far, and the driving experience between these two are quite different. So let's go ahead and dive into that. As I just said, the driving experience for these two crossovers is very different. That begins with what's under the hood. The all-new Subaru Forester has a naturally aspirated 2.5 liter boxer 4 for 2025, while the CX-5 Signature is one of the only segment options to still include a powerful turbocharged engine on top trims. That means it has a massive power and torque advantage by as much as 60%, and will accelerate much faster to 60 miles per hour. All right, there we are going up to 60 miles per hour. Again, we've got the turbo, and of course that's really the primary reason why one opts to get one of the trim levels with the turbocharged engine is because it gives you a lot of power. How much power? Well, to recap, 256 horsepower, 320 pound-feet of torque. We always talk about the torque figure, but that is especially what draws my attention because it really pushes you back in your seat when you press on the throttle. It's just a lot of torque for this segment. A lot of power for this segment. All right, so there is our acceleration up to 60 miles per hour with the 2025 Subaru Forester. Now, we talked about, you know, some powertrain specs and things like that in part one of this Forester review, but we do want to just remind you guys what we have on board. So, this is going to continue on with a two and a half liter Boxer four-cylinder engine. When it comes to transmissions, the Mazda has a tried and true six-speed automatic compared to the Subaru's CBT. While many prefer a traditional transmission's feel, it can be a little slow to shift at times, so we'll call this area even. Now, what is not even is the off-road capability. Here, the Forester pulls ahead with greater ground clearance, and while both of them have standard all-wheel drive, it's only the Forester's that has the full-time symmetrical all-wheel drive setup. This is what has long given the Forester its reputation for going off the beaten trail. As far as the other element of the powertrain, we have a six-speed automatic transmission. Nice and smooth shifts on board. Obviously, that's not the greatest number of gears, but probably about 50-65% of the segment is continuously variable transmission at this point. And it's not just a part-time all-wheel drive setting or setup, it is a full-time symmetrical all-wheel drive setup. So, that's of course going to help you with your off-roading abilities in this model. So, if you're one of those more adventurous type of people, you certainly will appreciate that here in the Forester. Now, let's talk about the ride quality. In this area, they once again differ significantly. The Mazda is one of the only options in the segment focused on driving dynamics, which means it's a lot more fun to drive, exhibits less body roll, and has fantastic steering. The con of that is that the ride quality isn't as soft as the Forester's. The Subie's softer suspension takes large and small bumps alike and cancels them out very well. So, it'll take the ride quality score. And now that we're finally clearing out of some traffic, I do want to take a second to discuss ride quality. I think that's really one of the strong elements about the CX-5 is how well it rides. Now, there's a couple things I do want to mention here. First of all, I do want to just point out the ride quality is going to still be on the firmer side compared to some of the competition. So, if you're cross-shopping it with a Toyota RAV4, a Honda CR-V, vehicles like that, they will have even more comfortable suspension setups than this. That's not to say this is bad at all. I think this is actually a fantastic balance between feeling luxurious and nice and comfortable when you're just cruising down a road like this and also giving you that sportier driving character that Mazdas are known for. Now, let's go ahead and talk about the ride quality for this all-new Forester. Now, in this department, I have been nothing but impressed for this all-new model. The Forester always rode really nicely and this all-new one very much feels like a Forester in that respect. That aside, how quiet are the cabins? Here at Car Confections, we take a sound level reading of every vehicle we test on the channel. Unfortunately, the Subaru's test was taken on a press event in Montana, so it can't be scored officially. But, here are readings for your reference in the meantime until we get one back home in Kentucky for an official test. 55.9 is what we've settled in at. 57.6 decibels. Now, as you might expect, since neither of them are hybridized, the fuel economies are rather lackluster for the segment. The Forester is certainly the better of the two though, coming in 5 mpg better than the turbocharged Mazda. It is worth noting that the Forester hybrid is expected to debut soon and Mazda sells a CX-50 hybrid for those looking for more efficiency. In our reviews and comparisons, we are adding in reliability and resale value information to give you a better picture of overall value beyond just the original MSRP. Beginning with reliability, we developed the Combined Reliability Index, which takes into account several studies from trustworthy sources and combines them in a way that gives you a more holistic picture. Subaru ranks 12 slots above the overall industry average for all brands in reliability, which awards it an additional 1.2 points, while Mazda is actually one slot below the overall industry average, which takes away 0.1 points. We also put Mason's economics degree to work to develop a detailed predicted resale value tool. After five years and 60,000 miles, both brands are quite impressive. Subaru has the third highest resale value percentage of any brand at 63%, and Mazda isn't far behind with an also impressive 59.4% after five years and 60,000 miles. That's only enough of a difference to award 0.4 points to the Subaru. Resale value is obviously important because it determines how much money you get back, but we can't forget about the price difference at the original purchase. The CX-5 costs $630 more than the Forester, which isn't quite the $1,000 of difference required for points to be awarded. I want to emphasize that if money, reliability, or resale value matter less to you personally, feel free to disregard these points. And if you'd like to check out all our data about reliability and resale values, as well as learn about our methodology, make sure to head over to carconfections.com slash resale and slash reliability. Buying a car is a big decision, and this is a great place to compare all the makes that you might be cross-shopping. So there you have it. That was another hard fought comparison, but let's go ahead and talk about who should be your personal winner based on what is most important to you. So to summarize, the Forester should be your winner if you're looking for the most rear seat space. Also, if you want that legendary Subaru off-road capability and more adventure-ready attitude, and then also you have better fuel economy. Now on the flip side, the CX-5 should be your choice if you value the turbo engine. It's going to be a lot more powerful than any version of the Forester, and the overall drive experience will be a lot better, especially if you like any type of sporty characteristic. It also is going to have some extra luxury features, a head-up display, power folding mirror, so those are things that are not available on the Subaru Forester. And overall interior cabin quality is quite a bit better with Nappa leather and real wood trim, at least here in this signature model that we looked at today. But we want to know which one you are taking down below. Are you going to take the Subaru Forester Touring or are you going to take the Mazda CX-5 Signature? Now if you're looking to buy either of these SUVs or any new vehicle, we would encourage you to go to carconfections.com slash newcarquotes. Now the reason you do that is because we have a tool on our website that'll connect you with local car dealers in your area to get you the best price. It's also going to give you access to invoice pricing information, which is a great tool for dealership negotiation and can help the dealers to start to compete on pricing. Now if you'd like to take advantage of that, a link is provided in our video description and we also have a pinned comment at the top of this video. But guys that's going to be where we leave off on this comparison. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you did, we'd really appreciate it if you hit that subscribe button down below. By subscribing, you're going to get more comparisons like this as well as tons more automotive content I promise you won't want to miss out. If you're already a part of our family, thank you so much for your continued support and we'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies.