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 2-door cabriolet body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the BMW and front in the case of the Audi). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the BMW being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, 1 Series offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 1 Series as average reliability-wise, and A3 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as 1 Series rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 22km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Audi A3, averaging around 4.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (61 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 17% difference compared to 1 Series.

BMW 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, 1 Series offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say BMW. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.