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 5-door MPV body style within the same 'MPV' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the SSangYong and front in the case of the Volkswagen). The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 10-valves 163hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The fact that the Volkswagen got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the mpv segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 21% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of SSangYong with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Rodius as average reliability-wise, and Sharan is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Korean car rank it on average as 4.4, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Volkswagen 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 195 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (47 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 43% difference compared to the Korean car!

Volkswagen 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Volkswagen 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 Volkswagen. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.