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 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Executive car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Volkswagen and rear in the case of the Lexus). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 241hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 285hp engine designed by Toyota.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the executive car segment, which is generally a fortune safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Lexus does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Lexus badge with 4.9 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Lexus is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 11.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (25 mpg), in combined cycle.

Lexus 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 Lexus 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 Lexus. 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. 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™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.