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 diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 10-valves 120hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp engine designed by Mitsubishi.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. 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? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Mitsubishi does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of SSangYong with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Mitsubishi badge with 4.6 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Musso as average reliability-wise, and Pajero Sport 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 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.4 out of 5.

SSangYong 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 162 kilometers per hour, 12km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Korean car, averaging around 8.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 19% difference compared to the Japanese car.

Mitsubishi 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with SSangYong 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 SSangYong. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.