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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv 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 Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 177hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 147hp engine designed by Honda.

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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the British car offers a considerable difference of 15% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Honda presents an order of magnitude better choice, at least on all of the models level. 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 Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Freelander as average reliability-wise, and CR-V 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 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Honda is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.6 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 177 kilometers per hour, 5km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 9.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (29 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 28% difference compared to the British car!

Honda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 Honda 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 Honda. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.