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 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 165hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 180hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

Safety

The fact that the Audi got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the German car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that KIA does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of KIA, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Korean car rank it on average as 3.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 236 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 6.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (46 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to the Korean car.

Verdict

Audi 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 German car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Audi outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Audi. 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.