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 Lada-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 87hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 90hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The 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. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Russian car offers a considerable difference of 11% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Škoda does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. 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 2.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Škoda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 182 kilometers per hour, 14km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Czech car, averaging around 4.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (60 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 49% difference compared to the Russian car!

Škoda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.