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 Lada-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 122hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 75hp engine designed by Renault.

The fact that the Dacia 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Russian car offers a considerable difference of 25% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Lada with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Dacia badge with 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Vesta as average reliability-wise, and Logan is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Russian car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.4 out of 5.

Lada 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 180 kilometers per hour, 18km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Romanian car, averaging around 5.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (49 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 36% difference compared to the Russian car!

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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Lada outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Dacia. 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. 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.