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 mpv segment and utilize the same 5-door MPV body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 142hp engine designed by Honda.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the Mercedes Benz being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the mpv segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 16% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Honda is significantly less fault-prone, 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 4.3, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. The same official information place B as average reliability-wise, and FR-V is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz 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 200 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (54 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 21% difference compared to the Japanese 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 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 Mercedes Benz outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.