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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Suzuki and front in the case of the KIA). The first one has a Suzuki-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 178hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 175hp engine designed by Hyundai.
SafetyUnfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Korean car offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.
ReliabilityManufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Suzuki as a brand displays somewhat better results, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Suzuki with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the KIA badge with 4.6 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 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.
Performance & Fuel economySuzuki is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 205 kilometers per hour, 15km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Korean car, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 63% difference compared to the Japanese car!
Verdict
Suzuki 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 Korean car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Suzuki 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 KIA. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.