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 small family car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon 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 Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 225hp engine designed by Subaru.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle 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 marginal difference of 6% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen, as well as Subaru, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Bora as average reliability-wise, and Impreza is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Subaru is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.4 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 230 kilometers per hour, 5km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 9.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 18% difference compared to the German car.

Subaru 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 slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Subaru 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 Subaru. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.