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 diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 101hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 110hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

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. 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, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. 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 3% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Rover does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Rover, as well as Seat, with the same average rating of 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 45 as average reliability-wise, and Toledo 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, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Rover is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.6 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 185 kilometers per hour, 8km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (54 mpg), in combined cycle.

Seat 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. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. the Spanish car still consumps less fuel, which needs to be taken into consideration. It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Seat. 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. 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.