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 small family car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 110hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 110hp engine designed by Rover.

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 small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle 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, the German 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 Rover does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Rover badge with 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Bora as average reliability-wise, and 45 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Rover is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 189 kilometers per hour, 3km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle.

Rover 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Rover being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Rover. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.