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 4 x 4 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 150hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 129hp engine designed by Suzuki.

Safety

The fact that the Dacia got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. 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, 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 Romanian car offers a marginal difference of 8% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Suzuki as a brand displays somewhat better results, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Dacia with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Suzuki badge with 4.6 out of 5. The same official information place Duster as average reliability-wise, and S-Cross is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Romanian car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Dacia is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 198 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 5.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (49 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 17% difference compared to the Romanian car.

Verdict

Suzuki definitely wins the reliability competition, everything taken into consideration. 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 Romanian car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same 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... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Suzuki. 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.