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 'Executive car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Mercedes Benz and 4 x 4 in the case of the Volkswagen). The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 388hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 12-cylinder, 48-valves 450hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

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 executive car segment, which is generally a fortune safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Phaeton offers a considerable difference of 24% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank S as average reliability-wise, and Phaeton is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Mercedes Benz S rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 1.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.7 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Mercedes Benz S, averaging around 11 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (26 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 32% difference compared to Phaeton!

Mercedes Benz 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, Phaeton offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Mercedes Benz 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 Mercedes Benz. 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.