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 5-door hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. Both the engines are Daihatsu-engineered . The first one has a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 68hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 69hp one.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the Peugeot being a slightly better choice apparently. 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? On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, Citroen C3 offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Peugeot does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Peugeot with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Citroen badge with 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 208 as average reliability-wise, and C3 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as 208 rank it on average as 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Peugeot is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 163 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (66 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 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 Peugeot offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Peugeot. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.