Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the luxury car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volvo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 320hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 280hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Škoda does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Škoda badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed V90 as average reliability-wise, and Superb is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Swedish car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Škoda is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (39 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volvo appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Škoda offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Škoda. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.