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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 sports car segment and utilize the same 2-door coupe body style and the rear wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 136hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 200hp engine designed by Subaru.
SafetyUnfortunatelly, 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 sports 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Subaru does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW, as well as Subaru, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models 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.
Performance & Fuel economySubaru is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 35% difference compared to the Japanese car.
Verdict
Subaru 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 my opinion, everything taken into account, the German car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Subaru being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the BMW. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.