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. The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 6-valves 60hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 92hp engine designed by Suzuki.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), 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, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Czech car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Suzuki does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Škoda with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Suzuki badge with 4.5 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Fabia as average reliability-wise, and Swift is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Czech car rank it on average as 3.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Suzuki is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 5.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 175 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (47 mpg), in combined cycle.

Suzuki 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 Suzuki 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 Suzuki. 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.