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 Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 125hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp engine designed by Opel.

The fact that the Opel 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. 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? Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Nissan does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Opel 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 the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.9 out of 5.

Opel is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.1 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 154 kilometers per hour, 1km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 9.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to the Japanese car.

Opel 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Opel 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 Opel. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.