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 diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 306hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 177hp engine designed by VM Motori.

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. 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? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a potentially life-saving difference of 32% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Dodge does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Dodge badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed GL as average reliability-wise, and Nitro 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 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.7 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 50km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the American car, averaging around 8.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (33 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 35% difference compared to the German 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 German car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz 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... 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. 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.