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Compare any two cars and get our Virtual Adviser™ opinion

Car #1
Make
Model
Variant
Engine
Car #2
Make
Model
Variant
Engine

compare selected cars
2008. - 2011.
S - Sports car
cabriolet, 2 door
rear
Badges
Production
Vehicle class
Body style
Wheel drive
Safety
2009. - 2013.
S - Sports car
cabriolet, 2 door
rear

Marketing

Dimensons & Outlines

4103 mm
1777 mm
1296 mm
208 liters
300 liters
70 liters
Length
Width
Height
Boot (min)
Boot (max)
Fuel tank
4239 mm
1790 mm
1291 mm
180 liters
310 liters
55 liters
2008 Mercedes Benz SLK
2009 BMW Z4 Roadster

Engine

Mercedes Benz
1.8 M271 KE18 ML
Petrol
4 - Inline, 4 valves per cylinder
Compress.
1796 cc
184 hp
250 Nm
Engine
Fuel
Configuration
Aspiration
Displacement
Power
Torque
Petrol
4 - Inline, 4 valves per cylinder
Turbo
1997 cc
184 hp
270 Nm

Performance (manual gearbox)

manual gearbox - 6 gears
1290 kg
7.6 s
230 km/h
11.0 l/100km
5.7 l/100km
7.7 l/100km
182 g/km
Gearbox type
Vehicle weight
Acc. 0-100
Top speed
Cons. (urban)
Cons. (highway)
Cons. (average)
CO2 emissions
manual gearbox - 6 gears
1370 kg
6.9 s
235 km/h
8.9 l/100km
5.6 l/100km
6.8 l/100km
159 g/km

Performance (automatic gearbox)

automatic - 5 gears
1315 kg
7.9 s
232 km/h
11.5 l/100km
5.9 l/100km
8.0 l/100km
190 g/km
Gearbox type
Vehicle weight
Acc. 0-100
Top speed
Cons. (urban)
Cons. (highway)
Cons. (average)
CO2 emissions
automatic - 8 gears
1395 kg
7.2 s
232 km/h
9.1 l/100km
5.5 l/100km
6.8 l/100km
159 g/km

Expenses

10000 EUR
Price from
21500 EUR

Virtual Adviser's™ opinion

Overview

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 sports car segment and utilize the same 2-door cabriolet 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 4-cylinder, 16-valves 184hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 184hp engine designed by BMW.

Safety

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the sports car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle 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, BMW Z4 offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Reliability

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 BMW badge with 4.2 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as SLK rank it on average as 4.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.5 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

BMW is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be BMW Z4, averaging around 6.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to SLK.


Verdict

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, BMW Z4 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW 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 BMW. 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, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.

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