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 wagon body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Audi and 4 x 4 in the case of the Volvo). The first one has a Audi-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 218hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 235hp engine designed by Volvo.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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?

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volvo does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Volvo badge with 3.2 out of 5. The same official information place A6 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.

Volvo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 240 kilometers per hour, 6km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (58 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volvo 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 Volvo 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 Volvo. 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. 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.