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 front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 132hp engine designed by Hyundai.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. The same official information place Qashqai as average reliability-wise, and Tucson 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 4.4, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Nissan is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 183 kilometers per hour, 1km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 5.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (49 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 16% 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 Korean car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Nissan being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Nissan. 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.