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 large family car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 200hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 120hp engine designed by Mazda.

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 Alfa Romeo being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Mazda is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 159 as average reliability-wise, and 6 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 3.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 233 kilometers per hour, 41km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 8.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle.

Mazda 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 Italian car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Alfa Romeo outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Alfa Romeo. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.