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 4-door sedan 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 Audi-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 20-valves 180hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 117hp engine designed by Rover.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Spanish car offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Rover does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Seat with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Rover badge with 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Toledo as average reliability-wise, and 45 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Spanish car rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

Seat is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 229 kilometers per hour, 36km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the British car, averaging around 7.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 20% difference compared to the Spanish car.

Rover 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 Spanish car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Seat being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Rover. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.