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 Suzuki-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 111hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 120hp engine designed by Hyundai.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. 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. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 20% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Suzuki does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Suzuki with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. The same official information place Baleno as average reliability-wise, and i20 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Hyundai is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.1 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 183 kilometers per hour, 17km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (59 mpg), in combined cycle.

Hyundai 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 significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. the Japanese car still consumps less fuel, which needs to be taken into consideration. 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.