Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Volvo and rear in the case of the Mercedes Benz). The first one has a Volvo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 286hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 292hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Volvo does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 3.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed V70 as average reliability-wise, and E 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 3.5 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 8.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (33 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 31% difference compared to the Swedish car!

Volvo 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. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz 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 Mercedes Benz. 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.