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 petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 128hp engine designed by Hyundai.

The fact that the Volkswagen 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. 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 it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Hyundai does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. The same official information place Jetta as average reliability-wise, and Elantra is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Volkswagen is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 206 kilometers per hour, 6km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (52 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 20% difference compared to the Korean car.

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 German 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 Volkswagen 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 Volkswagen. 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.