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 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the BMW and front in the case of the Alfa Romeo). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 163hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 175hp engine designed by FIAT.

The fact that the BMW got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. 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 it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that BMW does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW, as well as Alfa Romeo, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place 5 Series as average reliability-wise, and 166 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 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.5 out of 5.

BMW 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 223 kilometers per hour, 1km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (48 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 27% difference compared to the Italian car.

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 much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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.