Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 3-door hatchback body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Audi and front in the case of the KIA). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 128hp engine designed by Hyundai.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the KIA being a slightly better choice apparently. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a considerable difference of 13% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that KIA does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as KIA, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place A3 as average reliability-wise, and Pro_Ceed is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.3, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 205 kilometers per hour, 8km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Korean car, averaging around 4.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (64 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 34% difference compared to the German car.

KIA 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 Audi outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say KIA. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.