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 4-door sedan 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 107hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 109hp 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. 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, 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 marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning 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 4.1, and models under the KIA badge with 4.6 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Thalia as average reliability-wise, and Rio is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the French car rank it on average as 3.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

KIA is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 183 kilometers per hour, 2km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Korean car, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 49% difference compared to the French car!

KIA 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 slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with KIA 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 KIA. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.