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 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Volkswagen and front in the case of the Renault). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 160hp engine designed by Nissan.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Renault does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Renault badge with 4.1 out of 5. The same official information place Passat as average reliability-wise, and Talisman is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Volkswagen is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 215 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (50 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volkswagen 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 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Volkswagen offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Volkswagen. 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. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.