Overview

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 luxury car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific hybrid engine choice they offer. The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 292hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 390hp engine designed by Volvo.

Safety

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two.

Reliability

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volvo 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 Volvo badge with 3.2 out of 5. The same official information place 5 Series as average reliability-wise, and S90 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 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Performance & Fuel economy

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Verdict

Volvo 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.