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 large 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 petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Nissan-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 150hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

The fact that the Nissan got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing 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 Italian car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Nissan is significantly less fault-prone, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Alfa Romeo badge with 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Primera as average reliability-wise, and 156 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 214 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 8.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle.

Nissan 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Alfa Romeo being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Nissan. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.