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 large family car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 20-valves 130hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 160hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

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 Alfa Romeo being a slightly better choice apparently. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Audi does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as Alfa Romeo, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place A4 as average reliability-wise, and 159 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.9, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 212 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 9% difference compared to the Italian car.

Audi 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 Italian car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Alfa Romeo offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Audi. 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.