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. Both the engines are Hyundai-engineered . The first one has a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 145hp one.

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 it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, Magentis offers a considerable difference of 14% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning 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 KIA with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Magentis as average reliability-wise, and Elantra is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Magentis rank it on average as 1.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.7 out of 5.

KIA is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 209 kilometers per hour, 1km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Elantra, averaging around 7.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (37 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 36% difference compared to Magentis!

Hyundai definitely wins the reliability competition, everything taken into consideration. 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 KIA being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 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. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.