I'm loving it

After a lot of car searches and review I narrowed down to Maggie on Diwali Oct 25 (Trident Chevy in Bangalore). For long I used to like Fiat Linea just for its beautiful looks (sexy ass). When I test drove it I was disappointed. Neither did I feel I was driving an expensive car nor the performance was good. It was then I decided to look for a powerful car. First I test-drove Verna Fluidic. Once again I didn't feel I was sitting in an expensive car. It took some time for the turbo to kick-in, but after that I was good. I was disappointed when I wanted to adjust the height of driver seat. The sales guy told me it's not there even there. I'm 5'6" and I wasn't comfortable with that. I definitely need a pillow to sit on and drive. 

Until then I didn't even know about a car by name Optra Magnum. It only after an extensive research I came to know about this car. I saw many people in the forums says "Just take a TC and see". I thought ok let me do that. And when I took the test drive, wow I felt what they said was true. There are many things missing in Optra. like "distance to empty", "fuel economy" etc. Tough I would like to have those features in the car my primary goal it to have a car with good performance and good to drive. Well Maggie exceeded my expectations in that regard. Once again I took a TC , this time with my family. As soon as we sat inside the car my 6 year old daugther said "Wow!! spacious". When I started driving she said "very smooth". I just loved the way she used these terms. Then in less than 2 weeks I got it.

I replaced the 6-cd changer with a sony DVD player (for my daughter) and a rear parking camera. That cost about 32k. Overall I'm very happy about my purchase.

Exterior It's just an average looking car.

Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) Excellent and comforable seats. Very spacious back seats for my family.

Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox Just love the performance of the car. It moves so smoothly in 1st giear. But I have a problem with the 2nd gear especially while riding over speed-breakers. May be I haven't mastered how to drive it. Not that I'm an ameture driver, I have over 13 years of driving experience (both local and abroad). But this is my first diesel vehicle. Fuel economy is very good on the highway, but in city traffic I got a little less than 12.

Ride Quality & Handling Car is very stable and I feel safe while driving it. Took it on highway for a total of 400 kms and most of the time I was at 90kmph. Felt like zooming past the 100 mark but I because it's a new car I didn't want to. (I've touched 110 even on a Maruti 800)

Final Words I'll keep it for a long time.

Fuel Economy I have driven only about 1600 kms. For the first time only in city driving I got 11.4 kmpl (may be attributed to my bad driving). Then the next time 440km on highway + 440 kms in city I got 15 (with premium diesel) which is ok to me. I'll update on the fuel economy after a couple of refills.

Great acceleration, very spaciousAverage looks, 6-cd changer