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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 184hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 10-valves 163hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

The fact that the BMW got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, BMW X5 offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears 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 with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. Independent research findings rank X5 as average reliability-wise, and ML is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as BMW X5 rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.4 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 200 kilometers per hour, 15km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 9.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (30 mpg), in combined cycle.

Mercedes Benz 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, BMW X5 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW 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 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. 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.