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 General Motors-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 110hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 115hp engine designed by Peugeot.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, 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 small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a considerable difference of 29% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Peugeot does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Opel with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Peugeot badge with 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place Astra as average reliability-wise, and 308 is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.6, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.2 out of 5.

Peugeot is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 196 kilometers per hour, 12km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the French car, averaging around 3.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (91 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 19% difference compared to the German car.

Peugeot 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 offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Peugeot 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 Peugeot. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.