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Compare any two cars and get our Virtual Adviser™ opinion

Car #1
Make
Model
Variant
Engine
Car #2
Make
Model
Variant
Engine

compare selected cars
1998. - 2005.
C - Small family car
wagon, 5 door
front
Badges
Production
Vehicle class
Body style
Wheel drive
Safety
2003. - 2005.
C - Small family car
wagon, 5 door
4 x 4

Marketing

Dimensons & Outlines

4409 mm
1735 mm
1473 mm
460 liters
1470 liters
55 liters
Length
Width
Height
Boot (min)
Boot (max)
Fuel tank
4415 mm
1695 mm
1485 mm
356 liters
1266 liters
50 liters
1998 Volkswagen Bora Variant
2003 Subaru Impreza Plus

Engine

Volkswagen
2.3 V5 10v
Petrol
5 - V config, 2 valves per cylinder
Nat. Asp.
2324 cc
150 hp
205 Nm
Engine
Fuel
Configuration
Aspiration
Displacement
Power
Torque
Subaru
2.0 EJ20
Petrol
4 - Boxer, 4 valves per cylinder
Nat. Asp.
1994 cc
125 hp
184 Nm

Performance (manual gearbox)

manual gearbox - 5 gears
1302 kg
9.2 s
216 km/h
10.8 l/100km
6.3 l/100km
8.0 l/100km
192 g/km
Gearbox type
Vehicle weight
Acc. 0-100
Top speed
Cons. (urban)
Cons. (highway)
Cons. (average)
CO2 emissions
manual gearbox - 5 gears
1305 kg
10.2 s
188 km/h
12.4 l/100km
6.8 l/100km
8.9 l/100km
212 g/km

Performance (automatic gearbox)

automatic - 5 gears
1327 kg
10.1 s
212 km/h
12.8 l/100km
7.0 l/100km
9.1 l/100km
218 g/km
Gearbox type
Vehicle weight
Acc. 0-100
Top speed
Cons. (urban)
Cons. (highway)
Cons. (average)
CO2 emissions
automatic - 4 gears
1315 kg
12.7 s
179 km/h
12.3 l/100km
6.5 l/100km
8.6 l/100km
206 g/km

Expenses

1000 EUR
Price from
2500 EUR

Virtual Adviser's™ opinion

Overview

Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Volkswagen and 4 x 4 in the case of the Subaru). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 10-valves 150hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp engine designed by Subaru.

Safety

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen, as well as Subaru, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Bora as average reliability-wise, and Impreza 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 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.2 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Volkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 216 kilometers per hour, 28km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 11% difference compared to the Japanese car.


Verdict

Volkswagen 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 Japanese 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! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Volkswagen. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.

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