Chevrolet diesel turbolag . Review on Chevrolet Optra Magnum

I was a little bit disappointed with Chevrolet Optra Magnum drive train. I did test drive on necklace road , Hyderabad for a full half an hour sometime in the month of November

13th , 2010 if I remember it correctly.

I was sitting with my wife, daughter and a showroom driver, show room sales guy.

I switched on A/C though it was not necessary because I wanted to see the power of engine when A.C was on and working.

The test driving was also done by my daughter who is a professional architect. All on the same necklace road at the same time.

The car was brought to our house, in Somajiguda by car dealer Orange motors for test drive.

It was a very new car, the seats are very plush, with excellent leather. The interior gives an immediate luxury sedan feeling and put you at ease and make you feel proud.

When you start the motor, the sound is almost negligible or you don't hear it. I had even stopped the car on the sideby necklace road and opened the bonet. The sound for such a big diesel engine is very smooth and not very much audible under the hood.

How I tested it?

I tested the car pick up by suddenly slowing down in a gear and then shifting to an upward gear.

My experience is this.

It has a heavy turbo lag which was to me very unaccepetable.

I had suddenly slowed down in second gear and put the car in third gear.

I pressed the accelarater. It was good, it picked up in third, it did not make me wait or irritate me at all.

Then I increased and immediately slowed in third gear and shifted the gear to fourth .

Believe me , when I declare this. I found it very irritating because , it did not pick up speed , inspite of me pushing the accelarator down. It took quite sometime, and slowly picked up.

In real situation of an opportunity to overtake , you would find losing such an opportunity. You would

resign from overtaking and shall have to be contented with running behind a bus or truck for example.

I had increased the speed in fourth gear and suddenly slowed only to put the gear in to fifth and final gear.

It took very long time even to gain any respectable speed. I pushed the accelarator to the bottom and held it there under my feet , without fear of its power.

The time it had taken to pick up from such a low speed of 40kmph is very long and very boring as well.

I could not stop from camparing it with Fiat Linea , which I had test driven on the same road just a few hours ago. Fiat Linea was far better , in this type of test and comparison.

I would like to write separate review on Fiat Linea test drive but here I can say that in the same conditions and test described as far, the Linea picked up from 3rd to 4th instantly , though sound of the engine was a little bit audible.

Linea also had takan sometime to pick up from 40 kmph in fith gear but very clearly it was much faster when compared to Chevrle Optra Magnum diesel.

There is difinetely a knocking when the car is slowed down to 30kmph in fifth gear , and when foot is taken away from clutch pedal.

When Linea was tested in the same manner , there was no knocking of the engine, at 30kmph in fifth gear it went on without complaining at all when feet is taken from all, clutch, brake and accelarator.

At 40 kmph I put Linea in fifth gear and took my feet off the clutch as well as accelarator.

The car slowly picked up speed and the speedometer needle moved slowly from 40 to 50 to 60 and then it picked up speed very fast even I did not even touch the accelarator.

Linea's engine tuning seemed to me far better than Optra Magnum.

There is one more big negative which finally put off our plan to buy Magnum.

That is body roll. When I sat in the back seat, I had instinctively leaned on the door armrest

and even did held on to handle on the ceiling above the door. The body is roll is quite high and obvious.

Some people like my wife, can get vomiting sensation. My daughter , after driving optra magnum for half-an hour got serious headache.

Another negative is a/c vents gave a high noise of air flowing.

So we decided never to buy Magnum.

The positives are it has a very smooth ride, smooth engine and classy interiors giving you a feeling of sitting in a Mercedes Benz. But for this leather and except nothing , we have to pay Rs.One lakh more for Magnum than Linea.