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 luxury car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon body style and the rear wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 408hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 550hp engine designed by Jaguar.

The fact that the Jaguar got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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? On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the British car offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Jaguar badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed CLS as average reliability-wise, and XF is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Jaguar is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 300 kilometers per hour, 50km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 9.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 38% difference compared to the British car!

Mercedes Benz 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 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Jaguar offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... 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. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.