Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel 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 (rear for the BMW and front in the case of the SAAB). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 197hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 180hp engine designed by FIAT.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. 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 1% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that SAAB does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the SAAB badge with 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 3 Series as average reliability-wise, and 9-3 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.7 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (51 mpg), in combined cycle.

BMW 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 BMW being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say BMW. 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.