Overview

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. Both the engines are Hyundai-engineered . The first one has a 4-cylinder, 12-valves 83hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 105hp one.

Safety

The fact that the KIA 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Cerato offers a considerable difference of 15% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Hyundai does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Hyundai with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the KIA badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Accent as average reliability-wise, and Cerato is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Accent rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

KIA is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 186 kilometers per hour, 13km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (43 mpg), in combined cycle.

Verdict

Hyundai 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, Cerato beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with KIA outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but KIA. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.