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 hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 101hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 100hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Spanish car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Seat does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of MG with an average rating of , and models under the Seat badge with 4.4 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the British car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.4 out of 5.

MG is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.8 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 187 kilometers per hour, 1km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (53 mpg), in combined cycle.

Seat is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 Spanish car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with MG being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Seat. 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.