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 5-cylinder, 20-valves 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 150hp 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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the British car offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Rover does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, 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. The same official information place Bora as average reliability-wise, and 45 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Volkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 224 kilometers per hour, 19km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 8.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to the British car.

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 British car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Volkswagen being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Volkswagen. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.