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 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Jaguar and front in the case of the Volvo). The first one has a Jaguar-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 550hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 243hp engine designed by Volvo.

Safety

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Volvo 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 luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing 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, the British car offers a considerable difference of 29% more metal.

Reliability

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volvo 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 Jaguar with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Volvo badge with 3.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank XF as average reliability-wise, and V70 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the British car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Jaguar is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 300 kilometers per hour, 60km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 8.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 57% difference compared to the British car!

Verdict

Volvo 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 Jaguar 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... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Volvo. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.