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 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the BMW and front in the case of the Alfa Romeo). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 286hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 226hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

The fact that the BMW 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? 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 12% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that BMW does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Alfa Romeo badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place 5 Series as average reliability-wise, and 166 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 7km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 12.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (23 mpg), in combined cycle.

BMW 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 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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. 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.