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 hatchback 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 4-cylinder, 8-valves 86hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 105hp engine designed by Subaru.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Volkswagen being a slightly better choice apparently. 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, 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 Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 14% 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, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, 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 Golf as average reliability-wise, and Impreza 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 3.9, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.1 out of 5.

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 178 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 5.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (51 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 36% difference compared to the Japanese 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, 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. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.