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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv 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 Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 462hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 544hp 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 suv segment, which is generally a very 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, GLE offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, 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. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Touareg rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 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 GLE, averaging around 1.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (188 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 40% difference compared to Touareg.

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, GLE offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Mercedes Benz. 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.