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 small family car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback 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 Mazda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 180hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 116hp engine designed by Toyota.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, Mazda 3 offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mazda with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Toyota 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. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Mazda 3 rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.9 out of 5.

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Toyota 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, Mazda 3 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Mazda. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.