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 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Executive 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 Audi). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 12-cylinder, 24-valves 326hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 12-cylinder, 48-valves 420hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the executive car segment, which is generally a fortune safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, 7 Series offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 7 Series as average reliability-wise, and A8 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as 7 Series rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 2.0 out of 5.

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 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 an obvious choice would be Audi A8, averaging around 0 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (INF mpg), in combined cycle. That's INF% difference compared to 7 Series!

BMW 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, 7 Series offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Audi being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Audi. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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.