Overview

Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Suzuki and front in the case of the KIA). The first one has a Suzuki-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 103hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 105hp engine designed by Hyundai.

Safety

The fact that the KIA got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. 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, 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 Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Reliability

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Suzuki as a brand displays somewhat better results, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Suzuki with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the KIA badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Liana as average reliability-wise, and Cerato is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

KIA is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 186 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle.

Verdict

Suzuki 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 Korean car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with KIA 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 KIA. 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.