Cars.com Small SUV Faceoff

Last year we had the Toyota RAV4 take on the Honda CR-V and Mitsubishi Outlander in a battle royal of cute utes. The Toyota won, which means it now has to defend its title against two newcomers: the Nissan Rogue and the Saturn Vue. It was stiff competition, but in the end the winner was an easy choice. Check out the results.

Cars.comparison: Small SUVs, Take II

Comments

[Skinner]

How can you name the Vue the winner when it has MUCH worse gas mileage than the other vehicles. That is the entire point of getting a "cute-ute" - for what the Saturn costs to fuel, someone could buy a real truck.

[Daz]

2 bad GM doesn't bring over the "Antara"s diesel engine!!

[Dave T.]

To be fair, the Rogue was a four cylinder and the RAV4's six cylinder is abnormally efficient. The Vue competes well with every other six cylinder SUV out there.

[Juan Carlos]

skinner, yes, the mpg isn't good, but overall is the winner.

[Amuro Ray]

Wouldn't a better comparison be a 4-cyl compact SUV showdown, instead of mixing and matching V6 VS 4 cyl? In that case, the Nissan clearly has a big disadvantage in terms of speed (drivetrain).

I also have 2 questionable concerns about the cargo area utility and safety features. For the Nissan VS Saturn (you explained why Toyota lost in cau), they pretty much equal one another...in fact, you praised the Nissan and have some complains 'bou the Saturn, yet Saturn comes out to be your pick in cau? As far as sf - Nissn has Electronic Brakeforce distribution (EBD) which isn't mentioned. I don't know if that's similar to the Saturn's trailer sway detection system (probably not), but it seems to me that Nissan also has the Traction Control System (different from Stability system) - if my memory serves me right. Does the Saturn also have traction control? If not, shouldn't Nissan have an advantage then for urban driving, which is what these compact SUV are really for, and not towing? More importantly, Toyota actually offers you off-road capability, which I think neither Nissan nor Saturn allows you to do so. I think that even though both Nissan and Saturn are good, and Toyota has few airbags (relatively speaking), the king for this category should go to RAV-4, as it has the best of both for compact SUV - both on and off-road sf.

Juan Carlos: Overall winner, to my understanding, is actually the Nissan Rogue (it has the best Overall Value, so everything counts in this case). The Editor's choice is the Saturn - that's ignoring the price and what you are getting in return. May be Dave T. can clarify what the differences between the 2? If $ is a non-factor, then possibly the comparo could go to the Nissan Murano price range too!

It's kinda funny that, being the bread and butter "Saturn" brand, the Vue is actually more expensive than its imports competitors!

[Juan Carlos]

amuro, cars.com is known of facing off cars that aren't exactly equal. they had a fully-loaded tundra againts a middle trim silverado and the silverado almost won. after complainst they "revisited" the issue and covered themselves and used the "acceleration" of the tundra to save face.

[George]

The 2gr-fe V6 in the RAV4 is supposed to run on 95 RON fuel, 90 AKI.
So if 87 regular was only used for this test, you will see better mileage in the real world with the use of mid-grade (or premium)

[Matt Levit]

The crossover market is definitely becoming bigger and more competitive. I can't necessarily agree with all of the reviews given. I do know I'm looking into the Rogue. I'd like to give it a test drive myself. I think its because I've been watching Heroes and love their commercials like this one so much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5PgHAHAoRw

[Dave T.]

The Rogue is a new player in the segment and we've gotten a lot of questions about it and we wanted to have it in this faceoff since it is so popular. The Rogue is not offered in a 6-cylinder.

In all other ways we tried to keep it a very close comparo with trim levels and pricing. An ideal would have been to get a limited RAV4 instead of a sport but that wasn't possible.

EBD is not the same as trailer sway control no. The Vue does have both traction and stability control yes. The EBD isn't a significant technology to favor the Nissan, and I'm surprised the Vue doesn't list it as well. It may have it and not mention it in the press materials. Not all do.

I thought we spoke highly of the Vue's cargo area? It's easy to fold, has a neat cargo system etc. The Rogue's is nice too. The 1.5 cubic feet of difference between the two isn't enough to make a difference, while the RAV4's is huge. After many visits with the RAV4 over the past year or so we've grown to loathe that door.

To clarify as well: The Editor's Choice is the top pick/award winner. The best overall value is clearly that. We recognize that some people have a cap in spending. That's why we even mention the specific price of $22,615 and what you get for the money. A buyer might not want to go over $25K and then the XR becomes out of reach for the most part. An XE can be had of course and we could do the same exact comparison with all four cylinder/base models being equal which wins, and the Rogue might win that one.