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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv 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 BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 190hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by FIAT.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Mini being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the British car offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that FIAT does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Mini with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the FIAT badge with 4.3 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 British car rank it on average as 3.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Mini is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 224 kilometers per hour, 28km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the British car, averaging around 4.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (59 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 33% 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 British car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Mini 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 Mini. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.