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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 wagon 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 Lada-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 98hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 90hp engine designed by Volkswagen.
SafetyThe fact that the Škoda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing 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 Russian car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Škoda does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Lada, as well as Škoda, with the same average rating of 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place Kalina as average reliability-wise, and Fabia is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Russian car rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyŠkoda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 185 kilometers per hour, 16km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Czech car, averaging around 4.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (60 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 36% difference compared to the Russian car.
Verdict
Škoda 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 Czech 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 Škoda being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Škoda. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.