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 suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mitsubishi-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 203hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 198hp engine designed by Hyundai.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. 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 Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 1% 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 results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Mitsubishi with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Pajero as average reliability-wise, and Terracan is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Mitsubishi is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, 12km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 13.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (21 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 15% difference compared to the Korean car!

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, the Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Mitsubishi 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 Mitsubishi. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.