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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Subaru-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 230hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp engine designed by Nissan.

The fact that the Nissan 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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Forester offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Subaru with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Forester as average reliability-wise, and Qashqai is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Forester rank it on average as 4.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Subaru is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 4.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 216 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Qashqai, averaging around 8.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 27% difference compared to Forester!

Nissan 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, Qashqai beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Subaru outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Nissan. 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.