The Rav4 drives better on rough roads compared to Mazda cx-5

Kindly help me out. I am torn between Toyota Rav4 and Mazda cx-5, both 2013 models. I live and work in a rural environment where the roads are rough. Please give a detailed comparison of the two cars with regard to reliability, value for money, aesthetics and performance.

If you live and work in a rural environment — and by this I take it to mean a region where the roads don't all look like the Southern Bypass — then right off the bat we can safely conclude that the Mazda isn't the car for you.

Mazdas are beautiful, well built, comfortable, sporty cars as far as passenger vehicles are concerned, but the cost of this awesomeness is a one-dimensional existence as dwellers of asphalt only.

Take them off the bituminous macadam and you begin to affect their lifespan "adversely".

I know this because I owned a Mazda not too long ago, but all it took was one trip to the village for me to concede to the heartbreaking news that my wonderful relationship with the pretty young ‘debutante’ would have to end because she started shedding her comeliness and structure under a steady onslaught of mileage, time and intractability.

This Mazda was soon replaced by an 18-year old Subaru that responds to all kinds of abuse, misuse, disuse and hard use with a nonchalant dull-eyed stare and a deep throaty rumble at idle. How this car hasn't died, I'm yet to understand.

Deep throat Subarus aside, let's talk about the CX-5 vis-à-vis the Random Access Vehicle (RAV4); Toyota's pioneering crossover.

This goes whichever way your tender loving care will be channelled; the absence thereof will be particularly hard on the Mazda.

This comes down to how hard you can haggle. The Toyota gives you the traditional and historic reputation for dependability that comes with the territory, which is steeped in relative simplicity, which in turn translates to peace of mind.

The Mazda offers SKYACTIV technology that is future perfect but makes the present tense, when it comes to repairs, if it ever comes to repairs. The RAV4 is bigger but the Mazda is better to drive. Decide where your loyalties lie and throw the dart.

Mazda win. Toyota has prided itself in being visually inoffensive ever since early man discovered the wheel and carved a Toyota logo on it, but inoffensive, more often than not is synonymous with bland.

Mazda entered the third millennium AD with their design guns firing from both barrels, and you will be hard-pressed to find an ugly one anywhere in its line-up. Inside and out, Mazda trumps Toyota when it comes to eye candy.

Again, Mazda wins. A smaller, more compact platform coupled with those SKYACTIV motors means a quick, agile and nippy driving experience with responsiveness and economy to boot.

The Toyota can't quite keep up. Both offer 2.0 and 2.5 litre petrol engines, but in both capacities the Mazda has a higher output: 164 versus 149 and 184 versus 176 respectively.

So, the CX-5 seems to be winning this, but is it really? On paper — and on tarmac — it is the superior vehicle by a clear margin, but your second sentence contains the words "rough roads", and that is the point at which you will have to do it like me and say Sayonara to the beautiful, tactile and agile Mazda and Kon'nichiwa something less stylish but more robust, if a little dull-eyed: the Recreational Active Vehicle.

If you want a fast Zio, then the 3.5 is the way to go.

I follow your articles on car analysis and reviews or queries from various people and I am learning a lot. I would like to have your detailed opinion on Mark X Zio, YOM 2009, and 2400cc. I have recently owned it (ex-japan) and would like to have your view in terms of its performance, fuel efficiency (Odometer showing average of 7.5km/l, can it be true?), maintenance, especially on both minor and major services, suspension durability and cost of new ones, electronic issues that I might be faced with in future, gearbox and engine issues. I am thoroughly enjoying driving the car. It is quiet, fast and smooth. However, I am getting a lot of scary reviews from people regarding its maintenance, fuel efficiency and suspensions. Please assist me in clearing my mind on this.

Welcome to a little game that I like to call Roll Reversal 2: The Conundrum.

You want to know about the performance, fuel efficiency and maintenance protocols of the Mark X Zio, which you say you have owned recently.

I haven't owned one, recently or otherwise. I have only ridden in one, very briefly, and that short ride is insufficient for me to draw any meaningful conclusions about the car apart from the fact that it is very spacious and when specced with a dark brown and black two-tone interior, giving it a very upmarket feel.

I like that colour combination in large cars. You on the other hand have actually owned one — and probably still do — so you tell me:

How fast is it? I know it can be, with a 3.5 litre V6 as an option, putting out between 270 and 300 llama thrusts. But how quick is quick?

Also, how much less quick is the 2.4 comparatively? I really don't know. The one I rode in was the 2.4, during a normal drive, so I can't tell.

Of the two engines which one are you saddled with? If you want a fast Zio, then the 3.5 is the way to go.

How thirsty is it? The vehicle I rode didn't visit a petrol station even once in a 160km journey, but that is saying nothing.

Literally, any car can do 160km without visiting a fuel forecourt (apart from Mitsubishi Evos, probably, with their test tube fuel tanks and fearsome thirst).

7.5km/l seems like par for the course for mixed driving in a big, heavy MPV-like van-estate chimera sort of thing (is the Zio a van or wagon?)

So, the odometer says 7.5km/l average, which seems just about normal for a car of that size and weight, but how about you do your own math?

Here's how: Fill the tank and zero the trip counter. Drive around as you normally do and once the fuel goes low, fill the tank again.

Take note of how many litres of fuel you take in during this second fill up and use that figure as the denominator in the km/l fraction, where the reading on the trip counter as at the time of the second fill up is the numerator. Easy. It should be at or near the 7.5, but it could be better.

Maintenance is unknown to me, but I can hazard a few guesses.

Parts for the 3.5 may not be cheap — it is a large capacity V6, after all — but then again, one rarely needs parts for a relatively new Toyota engine unless one either buys a dog of a car or treats it like one.

Service intervals depend on the manufacturer and the type of oil you are using. But if we are discussing the V6, you will buy more plugs and bigger filters and a lot more oil than you would for a 4-cylinder.

Suspensions are pretty standard fare for a road-going people carrier.

There is nothing race-inspired that optimises handling and corner-carving at the expense of comfort and ride quality.

And there is nothing inspired by a cliffhanging ibex that favours wheel articulation and ground clearance with body roll as the death tax to be paid for this extra ability à la Land Cruiser Prado.

In other words, there is no news here, nothing special, just ordinary shocks and springs in McPherson strut format up front and double wishbones at the back.

Electronic issues are uncommon in Toyotas, but where there are electronics, there are likely to be electronic issues, and the Zio is choked to the gills full of them — electronics, not issues.

It uses what we call MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport) Bus technology, which has less to do with mass transit and more to do with multimedia networking electro-trickery.

That it was the first Toyota ever to adopt this innovation makes it a guinea pig of sorts, and that is rarely a good thing as far as cars go.

More electronics abound in the form of millimetre-wave radar for collision avoidance, a smart key, radar cruise control, intelligent adaptive front lighting system, intelligent parking assist and a hard drive based navigation system.

In other words, nothing but a whole slew of potential flash points that no one really needed in the first place.

You say you are getting scary reviews from third parties. Who are these third parties and do they actually own Zios or are they typical Kenyans seeking pertinence by expertly mouthing off where they probably shouldn't?

A lot of people say a lot of things, most of which should be taken with a grain of salt, if not rejected outright.

I wish to import a car but I have no knowledge whatsoever, as far as cars go. I am conflicted whether to go for a Ractis, Vitz or Honda Fit. I feel the Honda fit is affordable but I am not sure how much it will cost me in terms of maintenance. I would also want to consider the resale value. Is colour really a factor because I would love to own a blue car? Once you import a car, what other related costs does one incur?

For a newbie in the game, forget about resale value for a minute and instead think of the value the vehicle will bring to your life.

You are not entirely wrong about the Fit. We've recently had an unfolding saga involving one such car whereby redemption was achieved partly through the intervention of this column.

It is quite interesting to engage in a discourse with both husband and wife as separate correspondents, but we are not discussing plot development in a potential script for a daytime soap opera here, we are discussing cars, and the Fit is one such.

It comes with twin electrode spark plugs that are quite pricey compared to the more ordinary single-electrode stuff other cars use.

The Vitz is more popular, but the Ractis is more practical — or at least looks like it. They are cousins, as far as some cursory research reveals.

The second-generation Ractis is not half bad, though it wears Toyota's latter-day design language quite fittingly, like an expertly cut two-piece suit but without a tie.

Also irrelevant to your question but of considerable interest to me is the existence of a Subaru Trezia STi, a car I have suddenly discovered exists that I now want.

The connection? The Trezia is a Ractis with a Subaru badge, so a Trezia STi should basically be a Ractis on a heady mix of Red Bull, chilli sauce and battery acid with a drop of Asterix's magic potion thrown in for flavour and bite. Yum!

Colour may or may not be a factor in pricing, but on the second-hand market this should not scare you.

If the price differential between a blue car and a non-blue car exceeds, say Sh50,000, then just buy the non-blue car and paint it blue. We share colour tastes because one of my current and immediate former cars are blue.

Incipient costs after importation are registration, minor service for the most part — or major service if the mileage calls for it, insurance and fuel. You don't need new shocks if the ones on the car are still fine.