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 large family car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the front 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 265hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 190hp engine designed by Honda.

The fact that the Honda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, Altima offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Honda does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 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 Altima rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.9 out of 5.

Nissan is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 8km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Accord, averaging around 9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to Altima.

Honda 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, Accord offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Nissan being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Honda. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.