Overview

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 Lada-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 106hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 110hp engine designed by FIAT.

Safety

The fact that the FIAT 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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Russian car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that FIAT does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Lada, as well as FIAT, with the same average rating of 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Vesta as average reliability-wise, and Tipo is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Russian car rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.3 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Both of the cars accelerate exactly the same, so we couldn't put one above the other. Car No. 2 is faster though, reaching top speed of 192 kilometers per hour, 17km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Italian car, averaging around 6.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (45 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to the Russian car.

Verdict

Lada 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 Italian car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with FIAT 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 FIAT. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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.