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 hybrid engine choice they offer. The first one has a Hyundai-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 141hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp engine designed by Toyota.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Toyota 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 small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Toyota does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of KIA, as well as Toyota, with the same average rating of 4.6 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Korean car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Toyota is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 180 kilometers per hour, 20km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Korean car, averaging around 1.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (202 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 264% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Toyota 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 Toyota being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the KIA. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.