Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 5-door MPV body style within the same 'MPV' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Volkswagen and rear in the case of the SSangYong). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 10-valves 163hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 21% 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 SSangYong badge with 4.4 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Sharan as average reliability-wise, and Rodius is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 4.3, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.4 out of 5.

Volkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 195 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (47 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 43% difference compared to the Korean car!

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 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.