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 Hyundai-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 12-valves 90hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 103hp engine designed by FIAT.

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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Italian car offers a considerable difference of 11% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Hyundai with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the FIAT badge with 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place Accent as average reliability-wise, and Albea is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Korean car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.2 out of 5.

FIAT is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 180 kilometers per hour, 11km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Korean car, averaging around 6.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (44 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 30% difference compared to the Italian car.

FIAT 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 Italian car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with FIAT being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.