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 mpv segment and utilize the same 5-door MPV 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 Renault-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 163hp engine designed by Peugeot.

The fact that the Renault got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the mpv segment, which is generally a good thing 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, Grand Espace offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Renault does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Renault, as well as Citroen, with the same average rating of 4.1 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Grand Espace rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.7 out of 5.

Citroen is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 203 kilometers per hour, 9km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Citroen C8, averaging around 5.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (48 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 29% difference compared to Grand Espace.

Renault 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, Grand Espace beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Citroen offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Renault. 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.