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 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 Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 131hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp engine designed by Nissan.

Safety

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the Citroen being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Romanian car offers a considerable difference of 26% more metal.

Reliability

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Citroen, as well as Dacia, with the same average rating of 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed C4 Cactus as average reliability-wise, and Duster is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the French car rank it on average as 4.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Performance & Fuel economy

Citroen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 193 kilometers per hour, 16km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the French car, averaging around 4.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (59 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 29% difference compared to the Romanian car.

Verdict

Citroen 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 Citroen 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 Citroen. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.