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 5-door hatchback body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 340hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 370hp engine designed by Hyundai.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. 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 marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that KIA does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the KIA 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 the German car rank it on average as 1.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

KIA is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 270 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 8.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 29% difference compared to the Korean car!

KIA is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with KIA outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the 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.