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 3-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 Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 169hp 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 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, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, 206 offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Peugeot with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Renault badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 206 as average reliability-wise, and Clio is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as 206 rank it on average as 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Renault is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 220 kilometers per hour, 12km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (36 mpg), in combined cycle.

Peugeot 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, 206 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Renault being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Renault. 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.