Help me help a friend pick a ten year old CUV

My friend who lives in western Canada recently had a little run in with some black ice and wrote off her Nissan Versa so now she is shopping for a replacement. She is very into everything outdoors and being active, gravel biking, bike packing, skiing (both kinds), hiking, mountain biking, the list goes on. The Versa has set the bar low so anything newer will be an upgrade. Budget is around $15k which is about $10 US these days lol. 

She is leaning towards a CUV, Rav4 and CRV both top the list but I have added the CX-5 to it as there are a few in my family with happy long term owners. She lives in a small city/large town in the rockies about 3 hours west of Calgary, the only dealer in her town is a Ford one so I think it makes sense to put a third gen Escape on the list too. AWD is a must, beyond that heated seats and cruise control would be nice, like I said the Versa set the bar low. Under 200,000 km would be fine but the lower/newer the better.

It seems like with her budget the vehicle will be about 7-10 years old depending on what it is so what do people think? Stick to the gold standard Rav4/CRV? First gen CX-5 holding up well? Third gen Escape (2013-2019) have an achilles heal that should keep it off the list even though it will be the easiest to service?

Thanks in advance!

The CR-V is the go-to in the situation I would think, Honda reliability and all that. Second would be a Subaru Forester, and third a Kia Sorento. I would never buy a Ford ever again, but that is 100% because of their awful dealers. GM products are bland, but reliable I woud guess. The ones to avoid are Jeep/Dodge. 

The second gen CX5 was introduced in 2016, I'd be looking to see if that's possible. Nice cars and they're a lot better in the snow than Foresters and CR-Vs of the same era. The traction/stability control is much smoother and predictive. The Forester feels like a truck by comparison and the CR-V traction control is very heavy-handed.

Everyone wants a SUV so that high demand can lead to high price.  Are there some vehicles on the "fringe"?  

Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix offered an awd version.  All the utility of a small SUV with just a little less ground clearance which might only be a "perceived" ground clearance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Matrix

Maybe I'm biased, but the Jeep Cherokee is a damn decent CUV. In Trailhawk form they're AWD and have surprisingly good off-road chops. 

I'm selling mine because I needed (and bought) something bigger, but the Jeep ticks the boxes and doesn't drive like a land barge. 

I'd vote Forester myself. I also had excellent service from a Jeep Patriot with the 2.4 but the world seems to hate them for some reason. The Hondas are better than the RAV4s, IMO. I just think the interior and overall build quality is superior. Toyota seems to be building the RAV4 to a price. 

Nothing Nissan, ever, especially if CVT equipped.

Make sure she drives them. I've had the "pleasure" of renting some of the choices and really though they were popular by reputation only. Horrible to drive. 
 

And we regularly own one that we have liked a lot. 
 

Everyone is different, so it's important to get out and experience them. 
 

BTW, if the Escape is the choice, try to find a 2.0 turbo. They get really good fuel economy. Shocking compared to the 1.6 turbo. We averaged over 30mpg on a +5000 mi trip to the west a couple of years ago. 

I'd buy a crv. My rav4 experience wasn't worth the price of admission.  I owned one for 13 years.

For what it's worth my company gives out new escapes and new Chevy equinoxes  to our service techs.   The consensensus is that equinox is better than the escape.  We also used to give out tiguans(Germany company) .  They were generally reliable which is surprising  

Early Equinoxes were hot garbage. I think the transmissions in them were made of glass.

The 'new' one I have as a fleet car is actually pretty nice. I like driving it more than my wife's HR-V. The only thing I dislike is the transmission that will not downshift after you slow, make a turn, and want to accelerate, unless you hammer the gas pedal. Then it downshifts and revs to the moon, rocketing you forward like it has dreams of being a JDM turbo car. 

My mom and sister both had Foresters (2017 and 2018, maybe). Sisters was one notch up from base model, think maybe it had alloys and an automatic and otherwise no real options. She sold it after maybe two years to move into a minivan because she was adding humans beyond the Forester's seating capacity. My mom's is a notch above the trim my sister had: factory rear tint, heated seats, etc. But not lane keep or anything (I think that was the top trim at that time). 

My opinion from those two is that they look nice on the outside, but the interior is very basic, lot of road noise, etc. My mom's seems to eat rear wheel bearings which is easy to hear when it fails as it sounds like the roar of the wheel bearing has no obstacles between that rear hub and your ears in the front seat. But other than the bearings and a flat tire, it's been nothing but scheduled maintenance for the 5 years or so she's had it. Pretty gutless would be my other complaint, but it returns solid fuel mileage on the highway, and I guess that's the exchange. 

A ten year old Escape is probably on the edge of the television in the dash dying, or the trans falling out.  A 15 year old Escape with the 4 cylinder will be slow and rusty, but probably a better old car.  

CRV or Rav will be twice the money, but likely twice the car.

We've had good luck with our '06 V6 RAV4, but there's nothing that's a sure bet from a reliability perspective.  As an example, the '06-08 RAV4s had a horrible oil consumption issue. I like our '15 Forester so far, but that came with high mileage (191k) and I'm working through some standard maintenance items on it.  There is an extended warranty on the CVT transmission for the Forester, I believe it's 10 years / 150k.  Typically the CVT issues on a Forester are fixed by replacing the valve body (not cheap, but better than the whole transmission).  I think service records are really key for anything AWD, I'd want to see regular oil changes (not extended intervals) and ideally some transmission and differential/transfer case services in there, as well.  My brother-in-law has one of the early CX-5s since new and it's been a good car for them.

I think it's really important to sit in some examples and drive them to see what she likes best.  As an example, we sat in some relatively new CX-5s at a Carmax down in Orlando, FL and were disappointed in how the interiors held up.  The Rav4s of a similar vintage also seemed to have a cheaper interior than our (base, cloth seats) 2006.

Thanks for all the feedback. She test drove a few options over the weekend and I think she is going to up her budget to get into something under 8 years old to get a bit more of the newer tech/creature comforts along with lower miles. Smaller, bigger she is not sure.

One of the vehicles she test drove was a 2020 Kia Sorrento that looked like it had decent options and liked it, I'm not a huge fan of the brand but is there anything to worry about with those in particular? https://www.kamloopsmazda.com/used/vehicle/2020-kia-sorento-33l-ex-id13839854.htm Obviously a lot bigger than she was originally thinking and a 3.3L V6 that does pretty poorly on fuel. I was like "someone liked it so much they traded it in after 4 years on a new Mazda" lol.

She liked the brand new CX-5 sitting beside the Kia but would be looking for a used one. Also drove a base 2012 Rav4 and didn't think it was worth what they were asking compared to others she looked at. 2016 Santa Fe was nice but felt big (although probably smaller than the Kia though), 2014 Escape was fine but didn't have her itching at her wallet.

She'll take the week, do some more research, test drive a few vehicles in town and hopefully go looking next weekend with a better idea of what she wants.

Cx-5 is my vote here. There are videos on YouTube of it doing things in the snow that none of the competitors can do. Granted, it's staged by Mazda, but still pretty impressive. The Skyactiv 2.5 and trans is very proven up to 400k miles in some cases. How many head gaskets does a Subaru need in that amount of miles? 4 at least.

I have seen CRVs stuck in an inch of snow. No thanks.
 

My parents have an '08 RAV4 with the 3.5 and it's been as reliable as gravity. Has needed nothing except oil changes, tires, brakes and shocks in 150k. Definitely recommend.

I know it's not what you asked but I see that somebody else mentioned the old V6 RAV.  If it matters, and it doesn't sound like it does, those are total sleepers.  Go like STINK for an unassuming little CUV.  It might be fun for her to add autocross to her repertoire.

In reply to A 401 CJ :

I've seen an OG Rav4 with a stick tearing around our local small road course, that thing could move! 

I don't think that use case is in her future though, especially with where she currently lives.

Either of the Korean brands seem to be  hit/miss on reliability. Some drivetrains will go forever, while others will explode under 100k. You really need to do your homework. I spent hours researching online and ultimately decided it was easier just to buy a Honda and not worry. 

The V6 Rav4s are great, they were available until 2012.  One thing to watch for in a Northern climate is rust - I had to replace the entire rear subframe in our '06 a few years back due to structural rust.  The ears on the subframe are open and crud tends to get trapped inside them, so they rust from the inside out.

Another vote for the CX-5. The 2017-up cars are really nice and I like them better than anything else in that class by far. The 1st gen ones are decent as well as long as you opt for the 2.5, and they did a short-lived 2016.5 update to them that would be the one to look for if you go that route. We had a 2018 Touring with the N/A 2.5 and it was fantastic. Drove great and put up with all the abuse we could dish out. 

CyberEric said:

Cx-5 is my vote here. There are videos on YouTube of it doing things in the snow that none of the competitors can do. Granted, it's staged by Mazda, but still pretty impressive. The Skyactiv 2.5 and trans is very proven up to 400k miles in some cases. How many head gaskets does a Subaru need in that amount of miles? 4 at least.

I have seen CRVs stuck in an inch of snow. No thanks.
 

My parents have an '08 RAV4 with the 3.5 and it's been as reliable as gravity. Has needed nothing except oil changes, tires, brakes and shocks in 150k. Definitely recommend.

If those videos are from the Mazda Ice Academy in 2016 or so, I got to go to that. The slippery surface performance difference between the CX-5, the Forester and the CRV was real. Not just the "get to the top of a hill and turn right" test but also more hoon-oriented tests. I don't believe there was a Toyota in attendance.

I thought I remembered a 2016.5. There were some rapid changes happening to the Mazda at that time.