Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Peugeot and rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Ford-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 197hp engine designed by BMW.

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 same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the French car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Peugeot as a brand displays somewhat better results, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Peugeot with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the BMW badge with 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 407 as average reliability-wise, and 3 Series is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the French car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 5.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (48 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 42% difference compared to the French car!

Peugeot 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 French car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with BMW 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 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.