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 luxury car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon 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 Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 612hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 320hp engine designed by Volvo.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it?

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. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Volvo badge with 3.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed E as average reliability-wise, and V90 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.5 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 7.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 27% difference compared to the German car!

Volvo is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Volvo. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.