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 city car segment and utilize the same 3-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 Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 96hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 68hp engine designed by Suzuki.

The fact that the Citroen got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, doesn't actually do much for it, as it's still a lousy 2-star coffin on wheels. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the French car offers a considerable difference of 19% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Suzuki as a brand displays somewhat better results, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Citroen with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Suzuki badge with 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Saxo as average reliability-wise, and Swift is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the French car rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.3 out of 5.

Citroen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 193 kilometers per hour, 28km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 5.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (48 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 14% difference compared to the French car.

Citroen 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 French car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Citroen being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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.