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 Mazda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 75hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 58hp engine designed by Daihatsu.

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. 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. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Demio offers a potentially life-saving difference of 31% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Daihatsu does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mazda with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Daihatsu badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Demio as average reliability-wise, and Cuore is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Demio rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Daihatsu is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 140 kilometers per hour, 20km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Cuore, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 43% difference compared to Demio!

Daihatsu 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, Demio offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Daihatsu offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Daihatsu. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.