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 260hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 177hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that SAAB does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of SAAB with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Audi badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place 9-5 as average reliability-wise, and A6 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Swedish car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.3 out of 5.

SAAB is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 19km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Swedish car, averaging around 8.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to the German car.

SAAB 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 SAAB 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 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.