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 Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 408hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 340hp engine designed by Jaguar.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the Mercedes Benz 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 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 British car offers a considerable difference of 20% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mercedes Benz does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Land Rover badge with 3.8 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed ML as average reliability-wise, and Discovery 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, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 55km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 11.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (25 mpg), in combined cycle.

Mercedes Benz 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Mercedes Benz. 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.