Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the SAAB and rear in the case of the Mercedes Benz). The first one has a FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 195hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 204hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

The fact that the SAAB got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Swedish car offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that SAAB does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of SAAB with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 9-5 as average reliability-wise, and CLS 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 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 242 kilometers per hour, 12km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 20% difference compared to the Swedish 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 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 Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say SAAB. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.