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 small family car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. Both the engines are Mazda-engineered . The first one has a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 105hp one.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Swedish car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Mazda does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 3.2, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. Independent research findings rank S40 as average reliability-wise, and 3 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Swedish car rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Volvo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 200 kilometers per hour, 16km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 6.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (45 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to the Swedish car.

Mazda 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 Swedish car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Volvo 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... 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.