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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv 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 Hyundai-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 188hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 240hp engine designed by Mazda.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing 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 Korean car 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 results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Hyundai with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Volvo badge with 4.6 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Korean car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Volvo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 210 kilometers per hour, 8km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 6.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 40% difference compared to the Korean car!

Volvo 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 Korean car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Volvo 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 Volvo. 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.