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 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Chrysler and rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Chrysler-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 193hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 174hp engine designed by BMW.

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. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the American car offers a considerable difference of 14% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that BMW does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Chrysler with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the BMW badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 300C as average reliability-wise, and 5 Series is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the American car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 227 kilometers per hour, 18km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 8.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 29% difference compared to the American 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 significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.