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 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 240hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 245hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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 large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Passat offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place Passat as average reliability-wise, and C is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Passat rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 3km/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 (51 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volkswagen 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, Passat offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Mercedes Benz offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.