Bought a Verna Xi a month & half back and have 1200 KM on the odometer by now. Was not very sure when I started narrowing down on this car primarily because it was a newly launched model with no track record. Went through the usual rigamarole of comparing specificaitons of all cars in this segment inclusing City (very low ground clearance), Fiesta (poor mileage), Optra (poor mileage), Baleno (low ground clearance).
I found Verna to be reasonable well placed on the specifications with a good ground clearance of 170 mm, 1600 cc engine with 103 BHP and a lots of new features as standard. Then I test drove one and found the experience to be fairly good in terms of ride quality (even on bumpy roads), excellent pick-up, small turning radius, well placed seats with adjustments, tiltable steering (believe me I use this feature on daily basis - keep it low on highways & high in the city) etc. I like the looks of the car from the front. But the boot shape could have been much better. It looks as though a beautiful design was chopped down vertically at the rear of the car.
Post the drive, I asked myself a question. Is there any other car with these specifications at this price and with a backing of a well established servicing network in India. The answer was NO & I went for it.
Today after 1 month of driving, I am not repenting my decision even a tid bit. I still think that Verna has an extremely good value for money. The driving experience is good. You get a rock solid feeling in the car which seems to be clinging to the road nicely at all speeds and curves. Since the engine is running in, I have not really zipped it too much but I am dying to since, I know that there is lot of power under the hood, waiting for my foot on the pedal to say "YES....lets go". The avg on highway without (though its early days to arrive at conclusions as the first servicing is yet to happen) a/c was roughly 15kmpl - which is great.
Overall, I am very satisifed happy with the car so far. Powerful, Mileage, Great looksNothing significant
