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 petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Renault-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 138hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 125hp engine designed by Peugeot.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the Renault being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Clio offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Renault does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Renault with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Citroen badge with 4.1 out of 5. The same official information place Clio 21% above average, and C2 7% below the first one. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Clio rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Renault is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 205 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle.

Renault is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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, Clio offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Renault being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Renault. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.