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 petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 251hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 203hp 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Patrol offers a potentially life-saving difference of 30% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Mitsubishi badge with 4.6 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Patrol rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Mitsubishi is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Pajero, averaging around 13.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (21 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 38% difference compared to Patrol!

Nissan 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, Patrol offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Mitsubishi offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Mitsubishi. 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. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.