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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 184hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by Honda.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the BMW being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the German car offers a considerable difference of 14% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Honda is significantly less fault-prone, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, 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 X3 as average reliability-wise, and CR-V 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 3.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 210 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 8.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 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 German 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 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.