Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 5-door suv body style within the same 'SUV' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the KIA and front in the case of the Volkswagen). The first one has a Hyundai-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 113hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The fact that the Volkswagen 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Korean car offers a marginal difference of 6% 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, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of KIA with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Sportage as average reliability-wise, and Tiguan is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Korean car rank it on average as 4.1, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Volkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 185 kilometers per hour, 17km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 4.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (59 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 48% difference compared to the Korean car!

KIA 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 Volkswagen being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Volkswagen. 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.