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 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the BMW and 4 x 4 in the case of the Opel). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 184hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 250hp engine designed by Opel.

The fact that the Opel got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Insignia offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Opel does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Opel badge with 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 4 Series Gran Coupe as average reliability-wise, and Insignia is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as 4 Series Gran Coupe rank it on average as 3.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 1.0 out of 5.

Both of the cars accelerate exactly the same, so we couldn't put one above the other. Car No. 2 is faster though, reaching top speed of 250 kilometers per hour, 14km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 4 Series Gran Coupe, averaging around 6.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (44 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 22% difference compared to Insignia.

BMW 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, Insignia beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Opel 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 Opel. 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.