[Jason]

The final decision between Ascent and Atlas was pricing. The Atlas with real leather and AWD was more money.

And consumer reports just named the Atlas as one of their least reliable vehicles

 

[Titanrx8]

I have taken an Ascent and a CX-9 for 24 hour test drives. Initially I wasn't including CX-9 in my shopping list but I had my Mazda 6 in for service which was going to mean wait all day or borrow a ride home. Instead of the dealer loaner I signed up for the test ride.

The reasons that I initially excluded the CX-9 were it's 3500lb towing capacity which is marginal for our current trailer and its limited interior/passenger/cargo room for a somewhat larger footprint. Full disclosure, I like Mazdas and if we buy the CX-9 it would be the 5th Mazda I've owned.

I liked the CX-9 look inside and out. IMHO, the best looking 3 row crossover short of the Jaguar. I liked the power delivery, very smooth shifting, quick off the line when needed and great mid-range for on-ramps and passing. The handling was also unexpectedly good having thrown it into some tight corners without any oversteer that I expected.

Where it fell short was in braking, adequate but not awe-inspiring. Frankly, I believe Mazda cheaped out on the tires and if I buy it, I'll make a deal to swap for better rubber before leaving the lot. I don't recall the specific tires that were mounted on the 20" wheels of the Grand Touring I tested but I looked them up afterwards and CR ranked them low for dry and wet braking so my suspicions were probably correct.

The other areas where the CX-9 fell short was in the advanced safety features. Not that I want an intrusive nanny, but if I accidentally veer off course, i'd like a solid tug on the wheel to get me back on course. When I tested the ability in the Mazda, the corrective feel was so mild I thought it was just a bump in the road. Perhaps the biggest potential show-stopper is the cargo area utility. For me, the car is used for 2 passengers 70% of the time, 2 passengers plus 2 dogs 25% of the time and additional passengers 5%. The Grand Touring I tested had the optional second row Captain seats which were very comfortable as well as a full second row console. The captain seats and console made a very comfortable passenger area and would keep the dogs from running all over, BUT, when you fold down the second row, the console stands at least 6 inches higher than the loading floor. Might not matter often, but a flat screen TV box wouldn't fit because of that console.

I can't say that I've ruled out the Mazda because it would be primarily my wife's car and Mazda has best looks and exterior color that she really finds appealing. I lean toward the Subaru because of the advanced safety features, but I hate, no, I despise the fake shifting in the CV and wish death upon whoever at Mazda decided to do that. Might be a non issue for my wife. I am also downgrading the Subaru because of its declining reliability (specifically the Ascent being CR rated as the least reliable Subaru). At this point, for me I'd go with the Telluride/Palisade as the winning compromise but only if I can get one for the right price. Subaru and Mazda are throwing every promotion they got at me and the Hyundai brands aren't.

 

[Percy Garris]

I think you have a fair assessment of both vehicles. I do (and some other people here will agree with me, and many won't) find the Ascent lane keep assist bit severe when it corrects. That's a situation where I prefer a more mild nudge, but that's a personal preference.
I think the safety systems are pretty similar on pretty much everything in the spectrum now, although Subaru's are perhaps a little bit more mature than others. It's also a newer structure so therefore it would probably crash test better in real life then the Mazda, but I'm only basing that off the fact the CX-9 is a somewhat older design, and I hope you/we/I never have to find out either way.

I also happen to own a '19 F pace R Sport and I will say I have never driven another SUV that drives better than most sport sedans I have owned or driven. I no longer have my Corvette because the F pace is so incredible to drive. I will say the Mazda is definitely the closest thing to the F-pace in terms of driving Dynamics and style, in the <$70k segment ( yes the stelvio drives incredibly well also, but the interior ergonomics are a trainwreck, and the Macan was way too small). Yes the ascent drives nicely, and can certainly take corners at a decent clip, but sometimes the transitions can be a little sloppy, and it's not the same as the Mazda. But the Ascent will offer you a more comfortable ride, especially if you live where the roads are poor. The outward visibility in the ascent is much better than the CX-9 as well.

Personally, I don't think you can go wrong with either one. Or with the palisade/telluride. I'm not a brand loyalist and I think they're all pretty good cars.

However, if the CX-9 had captains chairs in January 2019 when I bought my Ascent touring, I probably would have gone that route instead. Part of the reason I bought the f-pace a few months ago was because I needed something that was fun to drive and could make it up to my lake house in the winter when the roads aren't always plowed. I don't know that I would have felt compelled to buy the Jag for fun if I had bought the CX-9.

Lastly, spend some time playing around with the interiors of both cars. While the Mazda looks and feels nicer, the knobs aren't as easy to use as the more straightforward interface in the ascent, and the navigation voice commands don't work as well as in the ascent. And if you care about audio quality, I think the Bose system in the Mazda was much better than the HK system in my Ascent touring, but the systems in the higher end hyundai-kia twins are better still ( I don't have enough experience with the overall user interface on the hyundai-kia's so I can't say anything about that).

Anyway it's your money, do what's best for you and your family.. I thought I would just throw in a couple of thoughts having driven the CX-9 extensively before ultimately buying the Ascent. Knowing what I know now I probably would have done things differently ( my car also had a lot of problems so I have a different perspective than those who have not had any problems with theirs).

 

[Titanrx8]

I have taken an Ascent and a CX-9 for 24 hour test drives. Initially I wasn't including CX-9 in my shopping list but I had my Mazda 6 in for service which was going to mean wait all day or borrow a ride home. Instead of the dealer loaner I signed up for the test ride.

The reasons that I initially excluded the CX-9 were it's 3500lb towing capacity which is marginal for our current trailer and its limited interior/passenger/cargo room for a somewhat larger footprint. Full disclosure, I like Mazdas and if we buy the CX-9 it would be the 5th Mazda I've owned.

I liked the CX-9 look inside and out. IMHO, the best looking 3 row crossover short of the Jaguar. I liked the power delivery, very smooth shifting, quick off the line when needed and great mid-range for on-ramps and passing. The handling was also unexpectedly good having thrown it into some tight corners without any oversteer that I expected.

Where it fell short was in braking, adequate but not awe-inspiring. Frankly, I believe Mazda cheaped out on the tires and if I buy it, I'll make a deal to swap for better rubber before leaving the lot. I don't recall the specific tires that were mounted on the 20" wheels of the Grand Touring I tested but I looked them up afterwards and CR ranked them low for dry and wet braking so my suspicions were probably correct.

The other areas where the CX-9 fell short was in the advanced safety features. Not that I want an intrusive nanny, but if I accidentally veer off course, i'd like a solid tug on the wheel to get me back on course. When I tested the ability in the Mazda, the corrective feel was so mild I thought it was just a bump in the road. Perhaps the biggest potential show-stopper is the cargo area utility. For me, the car is used for 2 passengers 70% of the time, 2 passengers plus 2 dogs 25% of the time and additional passengers 5%. The Grand Touring I tested had the optional second row Captain seats which were very comfortable as well as a full second row console. The captain seats and console made a very comfortable passenger area and would keep the dogs from running all over, BUT, when you fold down the second row, the console stands at least 6 inches higher than the loading floor. Might not matter often, but a flat screen TV box wouldn't fit because of that console.

I can't say that I've ruled out the Mazda because it would be primarily my wife's car and Mazda has best looks and exterior color that she really finds appealing. I lean toward the Subaru because of the advanced safety features, but I hate, no, I despise the fake shifting in the CV and wish death upon whoever at Mazda decided to do that. Might be a non issue for my wife. I am also downgrading the Subaru because of its declining reliability (specifically the Ascent being CR rated as the least reliable Subaru). At this point, for me I'd go with the Telluride/Palisade as the winning compromise but only if I can get one for the right price. Subaru and Mazda are throwing every promotion they got at me and the Hyundai brands aren't.

Well, we're 3 weeks into Ascent ownership but only have 120 miles on it due to the quarantine and my wife is in the highly immune-compromised camp which keeps me grounded too except for essential supply runs.

Believe it or not, the final strike for the CX-9 was the interior. Yes it's more cramped up front and has less cargo space but we knew that from the 24 hour test drives we had for both the cx-9 and the Ascent. We were negotiating for a Grand Touring in Soul Red with the Sand interior and 2nd row captain seats. I asked to see the car before it was dealer prepped so they took me out to the storage lot and opened it up. To my great surprise, the entire interior was black except for the seats themselves which were Sand. You name it, the headliner, dash, flooring, doors were all 100% black. Wait a second, the Red/Sand touring that I test drove had the same interior as my 2010 Mazda 6 - light colored headliner, pillar trim, door trim etc with the only black on the dash and carpet. Was I imagining this? We walked the lot and every one of the GTs in red had the full black treatment. Some of the lower trims had a mixed bag. We didn't want the lower trim because of some of the features that it omitted. Had the dealer call the port to search out what we wanted. No dice. The dealer offered to swap out the Sand pieces from another car at cost. No dice. It would have meant dismantling the entire interior and I didn't want to deal with potential problems from loose or broken bits. The number 1 deal breaker for us in Florida is NO BLACK INTERIOR!!! Sand seats don't make the interior non-black!!! I know this sounds petty, but why did Mazda make this idiotic change? They lost our business.

The Ascent kind of won by default since I already ruled out the Telluride and Palisade because all the dealers became a-holes as soon as they started talking about those models and not their other econo-boxes. No way I was going to pay anywhere from $2500 to $10000 above MSRP for a Hyundai or Kia or any other brand just because it won some awards. The overage disappears if the car gets totaled, stolen, traded or sold. It's bad enough that you're upside down as soon as you drive away from the dealer, there's no reason to put yourself upside down before you're even handed the keys.

So three weeks into ownership with very little seat time so far, I can only point out that as a first time subaru owner, there are some brand-weirdnesses that I wasn't expecting. Some of them very simple. Why hasn't Subaru gone to led interior lights or taillights? My 10 year old Mazda has all-led lighting. The Ascent's footwell lights are so dim I had to put a mirror on the floor to see that there were actually lights lit up under there. For a company so safety focused, why no lights/reflectors on the doors for visibility to oncoming traffic when a door is opened? Every car I can recall for decades have had these. I'm not going to itemize anything else, I'm not saying this stuff is bad, just weird. Mazda did some weird stuff too like only recently adding auto headlights even though the headlights would turn off in 20 minutes to save the battery. It's just that some Subaru weirdness seems to be particularly weird.

I'm hoping that we have the kind of service from the Subaru that we've had from Mazda's in the past.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

The footwell lights are controlled by the dash/radio dim knob. They get pretty bright if you want.

 

[Titanrx8]

The footwell lights are controlled by the dash/radio dim knob. They get pretty bright if you want.

Good to know.

 

[hokiefyd]

Subaru definitely has some brand nuances, but I think that's the case for all brands. I grew up on "American" cars, and have owned a few Toyotas and Hondas and they've had some odd behaviors/choices. Same with the Subaru. As a first-time Subaru owner, I'm still getting used to "what they do" with certain things.

The LED lights are a strange omission. For what it's worth, this is available as a "port-installed" option package, and it at least replaces the overhead bulbs with LEDs. Our Touring has it, and nearly every Ascent sold at our local dealer has it. I asked them what "port-installed" means and my understanding of their vague reply is it's done either on the line at the factory, or the cars are taken aside and these accessories are added before it's loaded on the truck or rail car.

We have about 2k miles on ours, and there is definitely programming in the CVT that I would change. Fortunately for me, it's not a big factor in our driving, which is mostly rural and at speed. It would be more frustrating in town. I'm very confident that it's not mechanical in the transmission, and is just the programming to hit certain economy numbers. I sometimes think to myself, "can't they just program something that drives smoothly anymore?" Our 2005 Acura MDX is the closest thing to "perfect" I've ever found in an automatic transmission, and it was before things got hyper-frugal in terms of fuel economy.

The part I love about the CVT is it's never hunting for gears (which can be a problem where we live, with rolling hills). We're generally never into the throttle enough to get the "fake shifts". The programming I would change is in the transitions between on/off throttle (it's usually not very smooth) and in the mildly dramatic ratio change shortly after you get moving on light throttle. I understand from posts here that Outbacks and Foresters from just a few years ago "drove better".

 

[Wyno]

Subaru definitely has some brand nuances, but I think that's the case for all brands. I grew up on "American" cars, and have owned a few Toyotas and Hondas and they've had some odd behaviors/choices. Same with the Subaru. As a first-time Subaru owner, I'm still getting used to "what they do" with certain things.

The LED lights are a strange omission. For what it's worth, this is available as a "port-installed" option package, and it at least replaces the overhead bulbs with LEDs. Our Touring has it, and nearly every Ascent sold at our local dealer has it. I asked them what "port-installed" means and my understanding of their vague reply is it's done either on the line at the factory, or the cars are taken aside and these accessories are added before it's loaded on the truck or rail car.

We have about 2k miles on ours, and there is definitely programming in the CVT that I would change. Fortunately for me, it's not a big factor in our driving, which is mostly rural and at speed. It would be more frustrating in town. I'm very confident that it's not mechanical in the transmission, and is just the programming to hit certain economy numbers. I sometimes think to myself, "can't they just program something that drives smoothly anymore?" Our 2005 Acura MDX is the closest thing to "perfect" I've ever found in an automatic transmission, and it was before things got hyper-frugal in terms of fuel economy.

The part I love about the CVT is it's never hunting for gears (which can be a problem where we live, with rolling hills). We're generally never into the throttle enough to get the "fake shifts". The programming I would change is in the transitions between on/off throttle (it's usually not very smooth) and in the mildly dramatic ratio change shortly after you get moving on light throttle. I understand from posts here that Outbacks and Foresters from just a few years ago "drove better".

Though not cheap, The Cobb Access Port pretty much makes the pedal response MUCH smoother. With it, I no longer have the head rock when even slightly accelerating in sluggish / stop and go traffic. That alone was enough to buy it, but the added performance is nice as well.

 

[hokiefyd]

Though not cheap, The Cobb Access Port pretty much makes the pedal response MUCH smoother. With it, I no longer have the head rock when even slightly accelerating in sluggish / stop and go traffic. That alone was enough to buy it, but the added performance is nice as well.

What's interesting is being in manual mode completely eliminates it, and using the adaptive cruise control also completely eliminates it. It's only when driving with the actual throttle pedal.

 

[packout]

As some of you may have heard, Colorado was the recipient of numerous 100 degree days followed by a severe drop in temp to below freezing within 24 hours including rain/sleet/snow. My job site had mud on top of mud on top of mud. Did I mention the mud? Delivery trucks would not enter. A run-around buggy had a tire pulled off the rim.

My Ascent did not miss a beat getting through the over 12" of mud. No special AWD X-mode settings were necessary. The following day I washed it down. My Weathertech mats were greatly appreciated as the driver's mat had a few pounds of mud. It took 45 minutes of directed water pressure just to get the tenacious mud out of the wheel wells. The next day after the precipitation stopped I went through an auto wash which did a nice job, but of course with all that mud not a complete job. Now that the mud is drying out, I plan on a thorough cleaning next week.

Thank you Subaru!

clarification update: I have the Falken Wildpeak tires installed

 

[Bsowhat]

I traded my 2019 CX-9 Grand Touring for a 2020 Ascent Limited. The CX-9 feels very premium Especially the real aluminum trim. The piano black on the dash scratches easily though. CX-9 is very cramped in all 3 rows. The deal breaker for me was the glitchy infotainment. CarPlay crashed frequently. Radio presets also would be lost when the system crashed. This happened every few days. The infotainment also took 50-90 secs to boot. So you would listen to silence while you waited. Simply awful.
The Mazda AWD is terrible. 100% FWD until the front tires spin. Which results in lack of acceleration on wet pavement and torque steer. Torque steer happened even when the pavement was dry. If the wipers were on, the system was designed to send some power to the rear all the time. So this was less of an issue when it was actively raining vs wet pavement post rain or snow.
The Ascent is roomy, has a better infotainment and a real AWD system that does not spin the front tires nor does it have torque steer.