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 Volkswagen). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 12-cylinder, 48-valves 445hp 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the executive car segment, which is generally a fortune safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Phaeton offers a marginal difference of 8% 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 results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place 7 Series as average reliability-wise, and Phaeton is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as 7 Series rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 2.0 out of 5.

BMW is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.6 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be 7 Series, averaging around 13.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (21 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 16% difference compared to Phaeton!

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, Phaeton offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with BMW 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 BMW. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.