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 city car segment and utilize the same 3-door hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Renault-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 67hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 70hp engine designed by FIAT.

The fact that the Nissan got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan, as well as Lancia, with the same average rating of 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Micra as average reliability-wise, and Ypsilon is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.3 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Lancia is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 165 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (61 mpg), in combined cycle.

Nissan 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 much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Lancia outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Lancia. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.