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 mpv segment and utilize the same 5-door MPV body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. Both the engines are Volkswagen-engineered . The first one has a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 12-valves 174hp one.

The fact that the Volkswagen got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the mpv segment, which is generally a good thing 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, Vito offers a considerable difference of 27% 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, 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 Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Sharan as average reliability-wise, and Vito is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Sharan rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 1.0 out of 5.

Volkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 217 kilometers per hour, 33km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Sharan, averaging around 10.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (27 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 31% difference compared to Vito!

Volkswagen is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.