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 4-cylinder, 16-valves 117hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 192hp engine designed by BMW.

The fact that the Land Rover got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a considerable difference of 21% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that BMW does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Land Rover with an average rating of 3.8, and models under the BMW badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Freelander as average reliability-wise, and X3 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 2.8 out of 5.

BMW is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 208 kilometers per hour, 38km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the British car, averaging around 10.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (27 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to the German car.

Land Rover 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with BMW outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Land Rover. 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. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.