Overview

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 executive car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the rear wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Jaguar-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 240hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 272hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

Safety

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the executive car segment, which is generally a fortune safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the German car offers a considerable difference of 16% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Jaguar with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank XJ 50% below average, and S 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

Mercedes Benz 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 250 kilometers per hour, 17km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 10.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (27 mpg), in combined cycle.

Verdict

Mercedes Benz 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 German car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Mercedes Benz. 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.