Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Not only that they both belong to the small family car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon body style, they are even powered by the same Volkswagen-developed diesel engine! There is not much there to point us towards one vehicle or the other. Or is it?

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Volkswagen being a slightly better choice apparently. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Golf offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Golf as average reliability-wise, and A3 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as these two vehicles rank it on average as 3.7 out of 5.

Audi is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 180 kilometers per hour, 1km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (63 mpg), in combined cycle.

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, Golf offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Audi being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the 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. 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.