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 5-door hatchback body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Volkswagen and 4 x 4 in the case of the Mercedes Benz). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 265hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 306hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle 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, Mercedes Benz A offers a considerable difference of 13% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz 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. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Golf rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Mercedes Benz 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 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Golf, averaging around 7.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 21% difference compared to Mercedes Benz A.

Volkswagen 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, Mercedes Benz A offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... 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. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.