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 Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 60hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 73hp engine designed by Renault.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Škoda 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Czech car offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Škoda does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Škoda with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Dacia badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Fabia as average reliability-wise, and Sandero is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Czech car rank it on average as 4.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.7 out of 5.

Dacia is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 158 kilometers per hour, 1km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (57 mpg), in combined cycle.

Škoda 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 Czech car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Dacia being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Škoda. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.