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 wagon 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 69hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 64hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The fact that the Peugeot 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. 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, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. 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 considerable difference of 11% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Peugeot does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Peugeot with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 306 as average reliability-wise, and Golf is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the French car rank it on average as 3.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.2 out of 5.

Peugeot is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 162 kilometers per hour, 8km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (54 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 19% difference compared to the French car.

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 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 Volkswagen. 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.