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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 (rear for the BMW and front in the case of the Honda). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 272hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 201hp engine designed by Honda.
SafetyA 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. 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, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. 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.
ReliabilityManufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Honda is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. The same official information place 3 Series as average reliability-wise, and Accord is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyBMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 23km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 7.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 19% difference compared to the Japanese car.
Verdict
Honda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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. 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 BMW. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.