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 diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 143hp 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. 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? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Mazda is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 159 as average reliability-wise, and 6 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Italian car rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.1 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 216 kilometers per hour, 15km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Italian car, averaging around 5.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (52 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to the Japanese car.

Mazda 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, 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 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 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.