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 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 Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 75hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 117hp engine designed by Honda.

The fact that the Honda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. 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, 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 German car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Honda as a brand displays somewhat better results, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Golf as average reliability-wise, and Civic 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 3.9, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Honda is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, 25km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 6.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 29% difference compared to the German car!

Honda 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Honda outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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 Honda. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.