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 5-door hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 105hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 90hp engine designed by Hyundai.

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 Škoda being a slightly better choice apparently. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Škoda with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. The same official information place Fabia as average reliability-wise, and i20 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Czech car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Škoda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 193 kilometers per hour, 23km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Czech car, averaging around 3.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (81 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 20% difference compared to the Korean car.

Hyundai 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Škoda 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 Škoda. 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.