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 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Honda and rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Honda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 201hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 170hp engine designed by BMW.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Honda is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Honda with an average rating of 4.7, and models under the BMW badge with 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Accord 37% above average, and 3 Series 58% below the first one. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Both of the cars accelerate exactly the same, so we couldn't put one above the other. Car No. 2 is faster though, reaching top speed of 226 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 6.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (44 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 41% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Honda definitely wins the reliability competition, everything taken into consideration. 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 BMW offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the BMW. 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.