Overview

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 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Ford and 4 x 4 in the case of the Subaru). The first one has a Ford-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 125hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 114hp engine designed by Subaru.

Safety

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Ford does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Ford with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Subaru badge with 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Focus as average reliability-wise, and Impreza is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the American car rank it on average as 4.4, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Ford is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 195 kilometers per hour, 6km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the American car, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 41% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Verdict

Ford 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Ford 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 Ford. 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.