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 diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Renault-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 178hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by Subaru.

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, 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 Nissan does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Subaru badge with 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed X-Trail as average reliability-wise, and Outback is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as X-Trail rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.7 out of 5.

Nissan is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 204 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (50 mpg), in combined cycle.

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 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 Nissan offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Nissan. 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.