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 small family car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan 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 Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 112hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp engine designed by Peugeot.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Volvo being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family 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, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Swedish car offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Nissan does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Volvo badge with 4.6 out of 5. The same official information place Almera as average reliability-wise, and S40 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.2 out of 5.

Volvo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 210 kilometers per hour, 23km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (49 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volvo 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 Swedish car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Volvo 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 Volvo. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.