Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door suv body style within the same 'SUV' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Nissan and 4 x 4 in the case of the Subaru). 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 162hp engine designed by Subaru.

The fact that the Nissan 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Qashqai offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Nissan does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Subaru badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Qashqai as average reliability-wise, and Forester is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Qashqai rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Subaru 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 197 kilometers per hour, 7km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Qashqai, averaging around 8.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 11% difference compared to Forester.

Subaru 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, Qashqai beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Subaru offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but 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.