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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 Honda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 114hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 110hp engine designed by Rover.
SafetyThe fact that the Honda 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. 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, 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 British car offers a considerable difference of 18% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Honda does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Honda with an average rating of 4.7, and models under the Rover badge with 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Civic as average reliability-wise, and 45 is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyRover is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.1 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 190 kilometers per hour, 2km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle.
Verdict
Honda 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Rover offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.