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 large family car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 105hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 90hp engine designed by Nissan.

The fact that the Nissan got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Nissan does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Lancia with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Lybra as average reliability-wise, and Primera is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Italian car rank it on average as 4.3, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Lancia is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 187 kilometers per hour, 17km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Italian car, averaging around 6.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (46 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to the Japanese car.

Nissan 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 Japanese car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Lancia 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 Lancia. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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.