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. The first one has a Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 117hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp engine designed by Tritec.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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 British car offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Rover is significantly less fault-prone, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Rover with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Chrysler badge with 4.4 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 45 as average reliability-wise, and Neon is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the British car rank it on average as 4.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Rover is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 193 kilometers per hour, 8km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (39 mpg), in combined cycle.

Rover 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 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Rover outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Rover. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.