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 large 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, 16-valves 145hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp engine designed by Mitsubishi.

The fact that the Hyundai 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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Magentis offers a considerable difference of 16% more metal.

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. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Hyundai with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the KIA badge with 4.6 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Elantra rank it on average as 4.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.4 out of 5.

Hyundai is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.4 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 206 kilometers per hour, 1km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 8.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle.

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 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 Hyundai being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Hyundai. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.