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 city car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback 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 130hp engine designed by Nissan.

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 Renault being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, Clio offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

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 Peugeot with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Renault badge with 4.1 out of 5. The same official information place 208 as average reliability-wise, and Clio is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as 208 rank it on average as 4.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Peugeot is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 208 kilometers per hour, 8km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 208, averaging around 4.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (63 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to Clio.

Peugeot 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, Clio offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Peugeot offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Peugeot. 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.