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 petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 24-valves 347hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 360hp engine designed by BMW.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the BMW 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 suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, BMW X5 offers a marginal difference of 3% 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, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the BMW badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed ML as average reliability-wise, and X5 is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Mercedes Benz ML rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

BMW is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 246 kilometers per hour, 11km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be BMW X5, averaging around 13.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (21 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to Mercedes Benz ML.

BMW 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 X5 offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW 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 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. 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.