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 5-door wagon body style and the 4 x 4 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 6-cylinder, 24-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 225hp engine designed by Subaru.

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. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the German car offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

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, when all the models are taken into account. 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. Some independent research have also placed 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 3.1, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Subaru is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.4 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 230 kilometers per hour, 5km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 9.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 18% difference compared to the German car.

Subaru 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 Subaru offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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 Subaru. 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.