Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the large family car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 120hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 155hp engine designed by Honda.

The fact that the Honda 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. 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 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 Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 11% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Honda presents an order of magnitude better choice, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 156 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 Italian car rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.9 out of 5.

Honda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 205 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 8.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle.

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 Japanese 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 Honda being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Honda. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.