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 5-door wagon body style and the 4 x 4 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 6-cylinder, 24-valves 256hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 18-valves 218hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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 Mercedes Benz 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Mercedes Benz C offers a marginal difference of 8% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place A4 as average reliability-wise, and C is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Audi A4 rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 15km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 10.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (26 mpg), in combined cycle.

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, Mercedes Benz C offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Audi being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.