Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Not only that they both belong to the city car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback body style, they are even powered by the same Hyundai-developed petrol engine! There is not much there to point us towards one vehicle or the other. Or is it?

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 Hyundai being a slightly better choice apparently. 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, Rio offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Hyundai does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of KIA with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Rio 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 these two vehicles rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5.

KIA is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 186 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (62 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, i20 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different 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! I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.