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 large family 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 hybrid engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volvo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 280hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 200hp engine designed by Peugeot.

Safety

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 same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a 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 8% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Peugeot does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 3.2, and models under the Peugeot badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed V60 as average reliability-wise, and 508 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Swedish car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Volvo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 17km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 1.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (157 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 128% difference compared to the French car!

Verdict

Peugeot 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 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Volvo outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Volvo. 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.