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 suv body style within the same 'SUV' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Land Rover and front in the case of the Toyota). The first one has a Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 117hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp engine designed by Toyota.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the British car offers a considerable difference of 21% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Toyota is significantly less fault-prone, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Land Rover with an average rating of 3.8, and models under the Toyota badge with 4.6 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Freelander as average reliability-wise, and RAV4 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the British car rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Toyota is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 175 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 7.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 41% difference compared to the British car!

Toyota 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 British car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Toyota offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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 Toyota. 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.