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

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Citroen being a slightly better choice apparently. 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, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Romanian car offers a considerable difference of 26% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Dacia, as well as Citroen, with the same average rating of 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Duster as average reliability-wise, and C4 Cactus is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Romanian car rank it on average as 4.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

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.

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 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 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. 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.