Overview

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 4-door sedan body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a SAAB-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 185hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 190hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

Safety

The fact that the SAAB 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 Swedish car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Reliability

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that SAAB as a brand displays somewhat better results, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of SAAB, as well as Alfa Romeo, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place 9-5 4% below average, and 166 those same 4% above the first one. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Swedish car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 225 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 9.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (30 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 23% difference compared to the Italian car!

Verdict

SAAB 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 Swedish car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Alfa Romeo offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but SAAB. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.