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 suv body style within the same 'SUV' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the FIAT and front in the case of the Volvo). The first one has a FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 180hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 156hp engine designed by Volvo.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Volvo being a slightly better choice apparently. 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? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Swedish car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that FIAT does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of FIAT with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Volvo badge with 3.2 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 the Italian car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

FIAT is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 203 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 6.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (46 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 45% difference compared to the Italian car!

FIAT 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 Swedish car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with FIAT 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 Volvo. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.