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 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Audi and front in the case of the Honda). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 190hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 158hp engine designed by Honda.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Honda is significantly less fault-prone, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed A3 as average reliability-wise, and Civic is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 2.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Audi 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 242 kilometers per hour, 32km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 5.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (50 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 36% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Honda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Audi 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 Audi. 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.