Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the BMW and front in the case of the Alfa Romeo). The first one has a BMW-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 185hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. 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 10% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that BMW 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 Alfa Romeo, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 3 Series as average reliability-wise, and 159 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

BMW 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 242 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 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to the Italian car.

Alfa Romeo 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, the German car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but 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.