Overview

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 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the BMW and front in the case of the Audi). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 156hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

Safety

The fact that the BMW got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Audi A5 offers a considerable difference of 13% more metal.

Reliability

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Audi badge with 4.2 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 3 Series rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Performance & Fuel economy

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 223 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 7.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle.

Verdict

Audi 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, 3 Series 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.