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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Honda and front in the case of the Nissan). The first one has a Honda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 295hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 290hp engine designed by Nissan.
SafetyThe fact that the Honda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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?
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Honda does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Honda with an average rating of 4.7, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Legend rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.
Performance & Fuel economyNissan is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at kilometers per hour, 250km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Maxima, averaging around 10.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (26 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to Legend.
Verdict
Honda 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, Legend beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Nissan being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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.