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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 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Volkswagen and front in the case of the Seat). Both the engines are Volkswagen-engineered . The first one has a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 170hp one.
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. 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, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.
ReliabilityReliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Seat badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place Bora as average reliability-wise, and Toledo is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyVolkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Spanish car, averaging around 8.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 26% difference compared to the German car!
Verdict
Seat 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 slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Volkswagen being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Seat. 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.