Narrowed down to two. Your opinion desired.

Subaru Outback or Toyota Rav-4?

Reasoning?

Any thoughts on how to decide?

"Outback" is spelled correctly which appeals to those who like precision; "Rav-4" is reminiscent of an equation, hence it's scientific and vaguely rocket-y.

Yeah, I'm of no help at all.
 
My first good friend to get her license and her own car had a Rav-4, so to me, it symbolizes freedom and youthful abandon, and that is the only compelling reason I could give to choose one car over another. I'm really more of a flip-a-coin kinda girl and am just here to say hello.

Whichever you choose, I call shotgun.
 
The Rav4 has 4-wheel drive which is a feature not offered on the Outback. I'd go for the Rav4 for that reason.

I also like the shape of the Rav4 over the "sedan" look of the Subaru
 
We own an Outback. Plusses are all the usual Subaru plusses--AWD, rugged, convenient, good gas mileage, easy to drive down dirt roads and on snowy days. LOVE the CVT, which I don't believe the RAV-4 has. Massive amounts of room inside. Back-up camera. Ours is loaded, so we like that, but you can buy a loaded RAV-4 too.

Minuses are somewhat soggy handling around turns (which you can balance out a bit by accelerating) and bulky angle of approach and departure. In the end I don't think they've quite match the wheelbase to the body mass. They'll get there.

I looked at the RAV-4. It's a nice car, reliable, convenient, also pretty good cargo room. No CVT. Tight handling (Toyota beats Sube here most of the time.) In the end, I liked the space in the Outback and much prefer the styling of the latter.

However, I have to say, those two cars don't seem to be the tightest match. RAV-4's direct competitor is the Forester. Forester has tighter handling than the Outback, and the new model will have CVT. Worth a look.

You might also look into the Sube Cross-trek, which is basically an Impreza on a higher wheel-base. It's a cool little car...
 
The Rav4 has 4-wheel drive which is a feature not offered on the Outback. I'd go for the Rav4 for that reason.

I also like the shape of the Rav4 over the "sedan" look of the Subaru
(All subarus are all-wheel drive...)
 
If you care about performance, go with Subaru. I personally hate Toyota's. They last forever (so do Honda's), but they're such plain, boring ugly cars. And their performance is crap.
 
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