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 5-door wagon 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 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 160hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the Audi being a slightly better choice apparently. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Honda is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Honda with an average rating of 4.7, and models under the Audi badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Civic 37% above average, and A3 those same 37% below the first one. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.2 out of 5.

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Honda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 German car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. 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. 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.