Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Lexus and 4 x 4 in the case of the Mercedes Benz). The first one has a Toyota-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 477hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 571hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

The fact that the Mercedes Benz got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Lexus as a brand displays somewhat better results, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Lexus with an average rating of 4.9, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.1 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 250 kilometers per hour, 20km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 9.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 23% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Lexus 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 my opinion, everything taken into account, the German car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Mercedes Benz. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.