Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Not only that they both belong to the city car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback body style, they are even powered by the same Volkswagen-developed diesel engine! There is not much there to point us towards one vehicle or the other. Or is it?

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 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? On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Czech car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Škoda does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Škoda badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Polo as average reliability-wise, and Fabia is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as these two vehicles rank it on average as 4.4 out of 5.

Volkswagen is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 188 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (57 mpg), in combined cycle.

Škoda 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 Czech car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Volkswagen offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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.