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 5-door hatchback 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 Renault-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 90hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 91hp engine designed by Daihatsu.

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. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the French car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Daihatsu does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Renault, as well as Daihatsu, with the same average rating of 4.1 out of 5. The same official information place Clio as average reliability-wise, and Sirion is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the French car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Renault 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 181 kilometers per hour, 11km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the French car, averaging around 0 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (INF mpg), in combined cycle. That's INF% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Daihatsu 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 French car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Renault offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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 Renault. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.