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 wagon 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 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 138hp engine designed by Subaru.

Unfortunatelly, 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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Subaru as a brand displays somewhat better results, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo, as well as Subaru, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place 156 as average reliability-wise, and Legacy is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Italian car rank it on average as 3.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 208 kilometers per hour, 15km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 7.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (37 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 12% difference compared to the Italian car.

Subaru 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 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. 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.