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 diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 110hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 75hp engine designed by Peugeot.

The fact that the Suzuki got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, doesn't actually do much for it, as it's still a lousy 2-star coffin on wheels. 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 that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a potentially life-saving difference of 30% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Suzuki as a brand displays somewhat better results, 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 Suzuki badge with 4.5 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Golf as average reliability-wise, and Baleno is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Volkswagen 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 offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.