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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 small family car segment and utilize the same 5-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 Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 112hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 110hp engine designed by Volkswagen.
SafetyThe 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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Seat badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place Almera as average reliability-wise, and Leon 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 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economySeat is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 193 kilometers per hour, 6km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Spanish car, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% difference compared to the Japanese car.
Verdict
Seat 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 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Seat offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.