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 Porsche-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 340hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 306hp engine designed by BMW.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), 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 suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Macan offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that BMW does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 3.8, and models under the BMW badge with 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. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Macan rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Porsche is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 254 kilometers per hour, 7km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be BMW X4, averaging around 8.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to Macan.

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, Macan offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Porsche being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.