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 4-cylinder, 16-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 204hp engine designed by Audi.

The fact that the Mercedes Benz got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Touareg offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, 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. 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 Mercedes Benz ML rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 210 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Mercedes Benz ML, averaging around 5.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (49 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 28% difference compared to Touareg.

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, Mercedes Benz ML beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.