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 Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 112hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 110hp engine designed by Renault.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Citroen does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Citroen with an average rating of 4.0, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank DS4 as average reliability-wise, and A is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the French car rank it on average as 3.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 3.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (74 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to the French car.

Citroen 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Mercedes Benz. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.