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 luxury 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 256hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 258hp engine designed by BMW.

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 Audi 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 luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Audi A6 offers a marginal difference of 9% 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 official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as BMW, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place A6 as average reliability-wise, and 5 Series is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Audi A6 rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Both of the cars accelerate exactly the same, so we couldn't put one above the other. Car No. 1 reaches top speed of 245 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 5 Series, averaging around 10.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (28 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 7% difference compared to Audi A6.

Audi 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, Audi A6 offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. 5 Series , on the other hand, consumps significantly less fuel, and that's a big plus. At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.