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 executive car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 10-cylinder, 20-valves 313hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 326hp engine designed by Audi.

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, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Phaeton offers a considerable difference of 25% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Phaeton as average reliability-wise, and A8 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Phaeton rank it on average as 4.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Audi A8, averaging around 9.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (30 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 21% difference compared to Phaeton!

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, Phaeton offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Audi 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 Audi. 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.