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 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Audi and front in the case of the Opel). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 340hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 180hp engine designed by Opel.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Opel being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, Audi A3 offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Opel does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as Opel, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank A3 as average reliability-wise, and Astra is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Audi A3 rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Audi is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 4.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 30km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Astra, averaging around 6.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 34% difference compared to Audi A3!

Opel 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 Audi outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Opel. 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.