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 (rear for the BMW and 4 x 4 in the case of the Subaru). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp 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 large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Subaru does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Subaru badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 3 Series as average reliability-wise, and Legacy is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 1.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

BMW 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 210 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 6.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (45 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 37% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Subaru 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, the Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different 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. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.