Hyundai Verna XI Petrol -Why I chose it. Review on Hyundai Verna

I had narrowed my choice to the Honda City GXI and the Verna XI (petrol)

My considerations in no particular order ( other than the bold)

1. Front seat height adjustment ( my wife is shorter and so is my driver) - Even

   
   

   Both cars support Front seat height adjustment

   
   




2. ABS and/or Seatbags - Verna- slight edge

   
   

   ABS/Seatbags - Verna has its brakes supplied by Mando Brakes and Cityby Brakes India and the former has a slight edge over the latter - especiallythe ones with the ABS ( BTW I didnt have the time to wait for the ABS whichdoesnt roll out till next month).

   
   




3. Backseat depth to support Carseat (preferrably in the middle) - Verna epsilon edge

   
   

   Both cars have good space (incidentally the Verna is about a few centimeters larger than the City -both in the front and the back - width and depth - and YES I had them measured ;-) )

   
   




4. Good trunk space - Even

   
   

   The City is larger at 500 compared to the Verna at 400 but the Verna has a 60/40 Split back seat in case I need to load something long - I really considered this a wash because sometimes you need to have big things stored and have folks in the car and sometimes you might like the fact that you can choose to bring home the long items in the trunk.

   
   




5. Performance - Verna

   
   

   I test drove both cars and I had expected the Verna to underperform the City in the 20-60 range (based on some reviews on the web) and I was surprised that it was not at all the case and the City was nowhere close to the Verna both in the City and Highway

   
   




6. Mileage (Fuel efficiency)- City

   
   

The City can go 12-13kpl and the Verna around 10kpl and so the City has atleast a 2.5-3kpl lead

1. Looks/Design (/Envy factor ;-) ) - City slight Edge

   
   

   My only consideration was that the car shouldnt be butt-ugly like the Nissan Morano or the Maruti Swift - as thought half the engineering design paper was torn off. The Honda is a familiar sight in the city and the straight H symbol as well. The Hyundai looks very different and pretty good in the Real Earth(the color I decided on finally) - My wife felt that it was a wash and if at all the Verna was better. I dont care if the design was bootlegged out of Munich or Tokyo - you can enjoy it all the same.

   
   

   P.S. I hate the faux wood in the interiors of all the C-segment cars. It reminds me of the American cars in the 80s. Unfortunately I have to live with it because apparently it is a desired factor.

   
   




2. Bells and Whistles - Verna with an edge I guess.

   
   

   The Verna has all the small knick knacks that the city has and some more - I really didnt care about them and but I do remember telling myself that the verna had more.

   
   

   P.S. the Verna XI doesnt have a music system - only the speakers - I didnt consider it a factor because I was planning to upgrade the existing City system to one that had aux input.

   
   




3. Cost - Verna

   
   

The City GXI was the least model that had all the features that I desired and so was the Verna XI.

City - 8.19

Verna - 7.10

10 Dealership - After Sales service/maintenance - Verna

Sundaram Honda is the only dealer in the city and I have heard about some problems with them in some other reviews online and offline. I spoke to the manager about this and he was very frank about this and said that they have accepted, identified and worked to rectify the issues - I was very impressed with this. They have also offered a new 7 free service plan (but its only within the first 18 months) But having said that - Honda spare parts are more expensive and 2 out of every 5 cars I see in Chennai are dinged, there are numerous Hyundai service centers and the spare parts are cheaper.

If you are going with the City - I think sundaram honda is a much improved place from what I have seen and that is only keeping in tune with the TVS name.

Kun Hyundai is the dealer I chose ( I test drove first from DSC Hyundai but the sales guy Gautham was not responsive enough). The people were friendly and when not informative atleast tried to dig up the info that I wanted.

1. Years of Ownership - Around 4

The main factors came down to Cost and Mileage - I had calculated my driving distance to be around 15000 to 20000 (max) a year and it worked to around 300 to 400 litres more for the Verna depending on the km driven. This translated to around 16K-21K a year or with fuel increases to Rs 65 - 19K-26K more per year.

The difference in the resale value of the car after 4 years worked out to around 20K on the plus side for the Honda.

Given a 4 year basis and positive differential ranges between 64K to 100K and a possible negative differential of -20K I decided to go with the Verna especially with it being the NKOTB and liking the feel of the car.

Partially affecting my decision was that I knew some of the Engineering folks involved in the Hyundai Verna and they gave me more details that helped make my decision.