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 4-cylinder, 8-valves 110hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 98hp engine designed by Lada.

The fact that the Škoda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Russian car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Škoda does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Škoda, as well as Lada, with the same average rating of 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place Fabia as average reliability-wise, and Kalina is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Czech car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Škoda is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 196 kilometers per hour, 27km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Czech car, averaging around 4.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (59 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 33% difference compared to the Russian car.

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 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Škoda outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Škoda. 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.