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 petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Toyota-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 98hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 90hp engine designed by Mazda.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Toyota being a slightly better choice apparently. 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, 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, Yaris offers a marginal difference of 5% 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 results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Toyota with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Yaris as average reliability-wise, and 2 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Yaris rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Mazda is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 200 kilometers per hour, 25km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (58 mpg), in combined cycle.

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, Yaris offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Mazda outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Toyota. 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.