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 Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 110hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 82hp engine designed by Nissan.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Rover 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 it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the British car offers a considerable difference of 22% more metal.

Reliability 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 Rover with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 25 as average reliability-wise, and Micra is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the British car rank it on average as 4.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Rover is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 6.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (46 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to the British car.

Nissan 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 British car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Rover being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Rover. 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.