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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 (front for the Alfa Romeo and 4 x 4 in the case of the Subaru). The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 192hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 162hp engine designed by Subaru.
SafetyUnfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Subaru as a brand displays somewhat better results, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo, as well as Subaru, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 156 as average reliability-wise, and Legacy is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Italian car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyAlfa Romeo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 16km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 8.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 36% difference compared to the Italian car!
Verdict
Subaru 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Alfa Romeo being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Subaru. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.