Verna via IndigoXL and City

I had been driving a beat-up Daewoo Matiz for far too long, and was becoming an embarrassment to my family and community.

WIth high aspirations and a limited budget, I narrowed down on 4 cars : The Indigo XL, City, Verna and Accent.

 The Indigo XL was light on the pocket and was fully loaded and had huge legroom (it was a small walk from the back seat to the front). 100% paisa-vasool for my middle class mentality. Until the test drive. I dont ever plan to be taking part in Silverstone or Sepang or Monaco, but, at some point of time after I have pressed the accelerator , I do expect the car that I am driving to  start to move .  And the clearance was also just borderline.

The City was good looking . I was repeatedly told it had great re-sale value. The interiors were good. The drive was pretty good. Now re-sale value comes into the picture if you can buy it first. It was a bit at the high end of my budget.

Last stop was Trident Hyundai Motors. The Accent was what I had my mind on, as it looked reasonably okay and the price was in Indigo XL territory. At the showroom, I happened to see the Verna and it looked better than the City from the side and front.  I did not even test drive the Accent. Just went for the Verna i.  About Rs 7.2 lakhs on-road was cheaper than the City and the other Verna variants (whose extra features were not , in my opinion worth it). And the finish too was far ahead of the Indigo XL. And even the Accent.

The Verna Test drive -5 minutes convinced me it had good interiors, a great road view, and an engine that seemed to be even faster to respond than the City.

The experience with the Verna after I have bought it (10 days) has been very good. Some niggles that I would look for avoiding in my next car are  (1) At low speeds, especially with the AC on, the engine stalls. It panicked me the first time. It has happened thrice to me. (2)  There seems to be blind spot while driving  because of the column on the driver side. It  takes some time getting used to, especially when turning right. (3) The rear view mirror is far to small.

The pick-up remains the #1 plus point for me. Smooth engine performance and pretty decent braking performance. Luggage space is large enough with the rear seat too being capable of being folded.

I think I am getting around 12 km/liter in light city driving with AC on.Great pick-up, road view, clearanceLow speed stalling, a blind spot