We put the Chevy Equinox against the Toyota RAV4 in the battle of popular compact SUVs — here's the verdict (GM)

The Toyota RAV4 is the second best-selling compact SUV in the US.
The Chevy Equinox recently got an upgrade and has boasted record sales ever since.
The RAV4 is competitive when it comes to reliability and safety, but Chevy is catching up on performance and vehicle tech.
We put the two head-to-head to see who wins the battle of the small SUVs.

For the last few months, I have almost exclusively driven compact SUVs.

It's not as sexy of a driving experience as, say, a Lamborghini Aventador, but there's still good reason for giving the humble crossover a closer look. Mainly, that this is what most of America is buying nowadays.

Compact and crossover SUVs account for 35% of all cars and trucks sold in the US. That's a win for automakers, which secure higher margins on the larger vehicles than passenger sedans.

The Chevy Equinox has boasted reasonable sales, but has conventionally fallen behind frontrunners like the Toyota RAV4, which is the second best-selling compact SUV in the US. Chevy, however, decided to give the Equinox a better shot at cornering the market with a revamped model that's been selling well since its launch.

We put the Chevy Equinox LT and Toyota RAV4 Platinum head-to-head because both are popular crossovers that match on size. We wanted to see how two crossovers on the larger size stack up when it comes to sheer driving experience.

It's worth noting, however, that we're pitting the Equinox's turbo 4-cylinder engine against the non-turbo, 4-cylinder engine used by the RAV4, which is also larger. That may be a dealbreaker off the bat for some buyers who prefer the power of a classic 4-cylinder engine.

That being said, here's our take on the two:

FOLLOW US: on Facebook for more car and transportation content!

As an initial note, the LT is not the most high-end Equinox available, while the RAV4 Premier is the most luxurious model on Toyota's crossover line. So there is a slight disadvantage there that we will be keeping in mind.

As a caveat, performance is the same across the Equinox line. We also drove an Equinox LT with two separate packages (the Confidence and Convenience Package and Sun and Infotainment Package) that come standard on the Premier trim.

The biggest disadvantage between the two would come down to some safety tech, such as lane-keep assist, that isn't made available on the LT. There's also slight differences when it comes to more luxe features, like heated steering wheels. We'll be making a note of this throughout the story.

The LT starts at $28,500, but add-ons increased the final price tag to $33,730. The RAV4 starts at a lower price ($24,410) but the Premier model we drove costs $36,150.

The Equinox Premier starts at $30,040.

The two SUVs are essentially equals when it comes to price. Unless you commit to the very base model, options that most find necessary will bump the price to the mid-$35,000 range.