[predatorwheelz]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

For god's sake when did a 110 bhp 24 kgm torque became uncontrollable? If thats the case, you probably dont know how to drive.

Haha, very well said.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Another aspect is the structural integrity. Often I have seen that the damage extends to deformation of A-pillar which is not good.

That made you question that the structural integrity?. Dude, in any modern car the A-pillar is DESIGNED to deform in the event of an accident, so as to absorb the impact and not pass it on to the passenger shell!

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Somehow, ( and again and again ) this car brings me back to era of Baleno/Esteem/G1HC ( I consider Baleno the best of all these cars ). Even with not so good rubber, these cars stopped well in a straight line, they performed well. Verna's performance is not this good but still crashes a lot.

PS : From the words " Verna's performance is not as good " I mean that the above mentioned old cars are both faster and quicker than Verna.

Are you sure? I think a resetting of facts is in order. Would be happy to provide some numbers myself.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Maruti and Hyundai do this for sake of FE. Even Honda did this in G3HC. The tyres are not good for speeds above 120 IMHO.

Dude, please please get your facts straight. The Baleno, an almost 100 bhp car, came with 165/80 tyres at the time of launch. Even later, in the VXI version the max they gave was 185/60 R14.

The Esteem came loaded with 155 section tyres for donkey's years. Only post 2003/4 they gave it better rubber in the form of 175/70 tyres.

The G3HC comes with 175 section tyres, and you're probably the first person who thinks its inadequate.

As for the Verna, initially the base model came with 175/70 tyres while the SX came with 185/65. Now ALL models of the diesel come with 185 section. Maybe not enough, but not "undertyred" as the 3 cars you quoted.

Originally Posted by f1fan

Safety purely lies with the driver and to what limits he pushes the car.

Originally Posted by A350XWB

But finally, you need a sensible head behind the wheel to control it. One has to understand the limits of himself and the car. I would say that more Verna's are in the wrong hands compared to any other car and that's the problem.

Exactly the messages I want to convey.

Originally Posted by Shan2nu

Im just wondering, if people have trouble with the Swift and Verna. Wonder what Cruze owners must feeling. That thing makes the Verna look slow.

OT - Oh yeah, test drove one sometime back. I'm sooooo in love with the Cruz. Loved the console and the power. Started to call it "starship enterprise" now.

Originally Posted by live2drive

Well, Sid, I can see couple of totalled santro's in the pics you have posted. Does that mean Santro too is an uncontrollable death trap on wheels?
Boss, come on! What do you expect, when you visit a Hyundai workshop you will be sorrounded by totalled Hyundai cars for obvious reasons. It's a no brainer.

There's a branch of reporting called yellow journalism. Put together a few sensational photos, then make a juicy conclusion about it. I'm off collecting crashed Indicab pics from tomorrow!

[tintin82]

It's much like the Starbucks warning on coffee cups "Caution : Content very hot".

The question is should car manufacturers only sell vehicles with adequate safety features commensurate to the power of the vehicles or is it the onus of the buyer/driver to keep himself within the limits of the machine?

In the developed world, no car is sold unless certain safety measures are present in them. In India, a car can be sold with absolutely no safety features (eg. M800, Omni etc).

With all these fantastic highways being laid all over the country and the rise in average speeds on our roads, it's time that ABS, EBD, Airbags etc are made mandatory for all cars. I see buses and trucks hurtling at 60+ speeds in the narrow jammed lanes of Bangalore, and if I were caught in a face-off with one of these, I want all the safety I can get.

[psathya]

Have been driving a verna crdi for two years now and I completely agree that while its fun to zoom it does not feel safe at above 120. It seems to have an aerofoil effect of almost lifting from the ground. The brakes are poor and the worst is the headlights.
For a vehicle capable of high speed the stock headlights do not cover the road ahead adequately.

[vkochar]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

A purely speculative thread. For god's sake when did a 110 bhp 24 kgm torque became uncontrollable? If thats the case, you probably dont know how to drive.

Well said ! I could have not put it better.

Originally Posted by live2drive

Well, Sid, I can see couple of totalled santro's in the pics you have posted. Does that mean Santro too is an uncontrollable death trap on wheels?
Boss, come on! What do you expect, when you visit a Hyundai workshop you will be sorrounded by totalled Hyundai cars for obvious reasons. It's a no brainer.

Well said again

Sid - At a Hyundai dealership what do you expect ??

Come to Agra and on the outskirts of Agra I will take you to Tata Showroom and Hyundai and Honda - You will be shocked to see the number of cars totalled and crashed. And in what weird ways ? You will be amazed at the driving skills of people in this part of the country

Go to Punjab and the number of crashed Verna's there will tell you an entrirely different story - Read - Drunk Fast Driving. Punjab's current favourite car after SUV's is apparently a White Verna with bling alloys.

I have owned the Verna for a little less than 2 years and have driven it almost 30000 km's. Base Variant - Stock tyres and no ABS. I have driven it on a top speed of 160 km's once and it was a bit scary - no doubt. BUT driving it at 120 - 130 kph on NH 2 is a weekly thing for me and it drives perfect.

I have had my share of Urgent Immediate Braking too with the occasional villager popping in out of nowhere or a Cow / Dog wander on the road and have had close shaves. It brakes extremely well even without ABS. In fact it brakes too well in my opinion.

I will say it again - there is nothing wrong with the Verna's brakes or tyres. Yes, an upgrade to 185 / 195 will be wonderfull BUT 175 stock is not bad as people have made it out to be.

The power and torque is just adequate and I have never felt it is a bit too much for city driving. I drive in Agra - one of the worst traffic managed cities in the world ( Yes, you have read it right ! ) and at days I drive for almost 10 kms with the gear constant change from 2nd to 3rd and back to 2nd. Not once have I felt that this car desperately needs to rush ahead.

It all depends on your driving skills. Leave the clutch and floor the pedal - of course the car wil fly. But then do the same with a Cruze / Jetta / Laura / Octavia / Dezire or any other diesel sedan and I am sure you'd crash.

[pras.oct25]

And just when I was thinking I wasnt contributing anywhere else but the meet thread I find this one. Brilliant.

In a land where maruti is king, and you can find random maruti omni cabs zipping around with tires that are the size of donuts posing danger to everyone else on the road, its sad that people are back to hyundai bashing.

If your scared about the torque pull at 2k rpm, then dont floor it. If you think the brakes arent good, dont go fast. If you think the tires are under sized, invest in new ones. I did that. And who ever it is who said that the smaller tires gave better mileage, well let me tell you my bigger tires are giving me much better mileage than any stock tire did.

For the chaps who think the brakes are bad - When your driving a turbo charged diesel thats going to keep pulling, how do you expect to slam the brakes and expect the engine to stop responding completely? After that you need the basic commen sense to downshift. The ABS in the verna does a mind blowing job of slowing the car down and has gotten me out of plenty of sudden braking situations. To date in spite of all my late braking I have not hit any car from behind(touchwood). Learn to engine brake if you think that the car isnt slowing you down enough. Its amazing how people can blame the car's mechanics to cover up their inadequacy in the driving skills department.

sidindica- I have seen the kind of reviews you have given for a lot of cars and the kind of scoops you get for people around here. While I appreciate that you distinguished chaps on the forum are doing a great job in getting people the info they want, instead of giving bad publicity for a car that many people are happy with, perhaps you would be better off trying to educate people around here about safety awareness. The last time I tried creating a thread on all that it got deleted.
Are you telling me, that the verna is more dangerous than the way bikers ride in india, or the way the auto and bus drivers handle their respective vehicles? Are you telling me that an ambassador, or a tata or a maruti 800/omni is more safe than a verna? The accidents in india thread is a testament to the number of accidents that happen around here. You cant expect to drive any car at high speeds and expect it to get you out alive in an emergency situation. You have to be Michael Knight with KITT for that. Get a life guys.

[acidkill]

Guys,

In the absence of any hard facts, looking at 10-15 wrecked Vernas amounts to what is called "Selection Bias" in MBA terminology.

To arrive at a conclusion that a particular car is accident prone would require us to analyze the total number of wrecked cars with the overall number of cars sold for each make/brand. Even then there could be several environmental reasons that make such an analysis biased.

The above is just my 0.02, but at a personal level I dont think the verna VGT is overpowered. Also, a visit to any service depot of any brand would reveal that there are similarly wrecked cars in there too.

[arunsasi]

cars don't cause accidents. people cause accidents
cars don't kill people. people kill people

as long as the market is price sensitive car makers will continue to do such mistakes. we don't really have any good laws on safety otherwise the Omni would not have been around.

[intoxicangel]

Verna = Death Trap?? Its the nut behind the wheel who makes it a death trap..
Dad's personal car is a Verna crdi with ABS and we have all felt the need of the ABS at some point of time or the other.. no skidding across tarmac if you are doing high speeds and for sure as hell no slidding into anything!!

From the very day the car was launched there have been cases of accidents reported and terrible ones at it as well.. reason, unexperienced loose nut at the wheel who finds the car uncontrollable when the turbo kicks in!!

My younger brother is one of em loose nuts who lost control of the car once on the ghat section between ooty and coimbatore and almost took us into the side of the hill.. but thank god for the ABS we didn't.. wet roads could have casued the same.. but on the same road there was a M800 that went into the wall.. so what says that??

If I give him my Swift Vdi (with out abs btw) he could put it into a wall or into the car / truck ahead (he did that with my stock powered zen last year)... so at the end of the day, its the nut behind the wheel more than the car!!

What would you say to all the Supercar accidents?? They for sure as hell are built to higher safety standards compared to the Verna and yet you see really really gross accidents involving an unexperienced driver behind the wheel!!

Verna or no Verna, any car for that matter can be a death trap if not driven the right and responsible way!!

[Trust_In_Thrust]

While it is true cars do not cause accident people do .
But at the same time cars help overcome accident situtaion too and capable of bringing them too.
The prime reason why we see these diesel and petrol like Swift , Dezire , City , Verna etc in situation of accident is first the way engine is tuned in Diesel (Completely non linear , remember even the Veyron or others use linear response engine) , then the cost cutting which the japs , Koreans are famous for like thin tyres , weak chassis , poor suspension at high speeds , Electronics power steering .

Also as someone said supercar accident also causes death but is he saying accident at 100kmph and 200+kmph equal?I again repeat cars can help overcome dangerous situations when they are properly tuned , equipped or what was the need to develop ABS , EBD , TCS , Stability system etc?

Also i will say manufactures are to blame here .Eg compare braking powers of Swift(puny tyres, small rotors , smaller pistons on calipers , smaller contact area of pads) and Punto and i am not even talking about stability,dynamics here just straight line braking or take the Linea ,Verna and City .

Regards

[civic-sense]

When you have a car that has lots of power, but bad handling prowess, it is prone to create (read, get involved in) accidents. You may want to blame the driver, but the car did its part in assisting the driver crash it. Everybody knows that the Verna is a really bad handler. Add to that, the skinny tyres and lack of ABS as standard. Call that a concoction for disaster.

I do not understand the knee jerk reaction by the Verna owners. Sidindia is just the messenger who brought you the bad news. Don't shoot the messenger. Get Hyundai to fix the car.

[shuvc]

One just needs to get used to a car. However, the adjustment time could vary. The car itself could contribute to an extent on how quickly one gets a hang of it.

I switched from a 800 to a petrol Indica with a scary (for me) 3rd gear. The handling of the car, the steering, the 155 tyres, did not help much either. I did take some time to get used to its limits.

Then I switched to the Baleno. Much more scarier initially, from a power pov. But I got used to it a lot quicker. Since the car itself was easier to drive/handle/manage.

Originally Posted by predatorwheelz

The Baleno, an almost 100 bhp car

@prads ! I wish ! Mine just has 91 .. sigh.

edit: I won't comment on the Verna, since I've just TD'd it for around 15kms. I must say I did not come to terms with it during that brief drive.

[ph03n!x]

True, we have a bunch of badly ripped Vernas as we have seen in this thread as well as the accidents in India thread.

Can someone take up the task of visiting the A.S.S of Maruti, Ford, TATA, Toyota, GM, etc, just for fun and look around for cars involved in accidents? Better still, most Police Stations have a junk yard where they tow and keep cars involved in accidents... I can pretty easily find totaled Fords, Fiats, TATAs, etc - should I create a thread for each set of them? I think not!

All I am saying is, you look for badly ripped <Vernas>, you get them (Replace <Vernas> with anything else, the statement will still be true. Tell me one car that is perfect is all senses anyways! No Machine is perfect or complete, it is the driver that makes it...

I have a Getz CRDi (June 2009), what is being termed as a roller skates rocket and what not in this thread, that has incidentally clocked 15151 KM as of today. True, I upgraded the rubber to 195/55 on 15" alloys, and never ran more than a couple of hundred KM on the stock 175/65 R14.

I have done speeds close to 200 KMPH, have frequented the Madras - Bangalore GQ, and have had close calls (what we may call as panic braking situations). I never lacked confidence while braking hard - no sir, my car does not have ABS or rear discs.

I am not saying am a great (or even good) driver - I consider myself average. I have had those stupid moments on road. But I think I know the limits of my car, and I keep within it. Even if it is a M800 or a Nano that you drive, if you do not know the limits of your car, you are asking for trouble - case in question is that Bugatti Veyron accident (Boy, that car was badly ripped. Maybe Bugatti did something wrong there?!!)

When I am on 40 and on 4th Gear, even without accelerating my car would pull. Same for each gear at their respective KMPH limits. If you brake without cutting down a gear, you are going to be braking, while the car trying is pull because the RPM is falling below threshold! What do we do, blame the car or the driver??!

@Sidindica - no offence, I have had a lot of pleasant reads from your threads. This is not one of them.

And what is with the herd mentality, folks? If someone says something we have a bunch of people, who with pure theoretical know-how and guess work, bash or praise??

[diffsoft]

@sid: I love your posts and obviously gotta take your question seriously as I am a Verna owner for just over 2 years with 34,900 km on the odo.

I have disc brakes on front and rear wheels. I replaced stock tyres with 185 / 65.

The highest speed I have driven is 170 kmph for just about 5 seconds. I have had no accidents so far.

On stability at high speeds: I think at about 120 kmph the car starts to get unstable as the steering starts to vibrate a bit and you need to concentrate harder to stay course. Over 140 you can't ignore the vibrations but the car never feels like it is out of breath. However all of this is when you have a straight line to travel. The car is a poor "cornerer" and hence sharp cornering at high speeds is simply avoided unless the coast is really clear and you have all lanes to yourself. Steering response is good but not great.

On braking: The car brakes much much quicker than Santro (other car I have). The ABS kicks in when the brakes are reasonably depressed for some time and you feel very confident about its braking abilities.

The poorest feature of the car is poor lighting both at low and high beams. The lit area is very poor for a car of this size and speed and visibility on dark roads is badly hampered. In fact the visible distance is smaller than braking distance at speeds of 80 kmph and above. Thus if you are at high speeds at night with poor visibility and you suddenly notice an obstacle - chances are high that it's too late.

While this car tempts you to push the pedal to the metal, the "Accidents in Pics" thread on Team BHP keeps me in check

[ImmortalZ]

A car is as dangerous as it's driver chooses it to be, just like how guns don't kill people - people who pull the trigger do.

The Verna is a subcompact sedan with an engine that is much more powerful than what the segment is used to having. It also gives you plenty of warning as the chassis loses the fight with the engine. If a driver pushes the car beyond it's capabilities, who is to blame? The driver, in my opinion. Nobody gives you stiff suspension, sharp brakes and track tyres on a mass market car. You cannot fault Hyundai for this.

Blame the idiots who drive a soft, wafty and ultimately comfort oriented car like a sports car for the accidents. Ultimately, it's us who push the accelerator pedal and we are to blame.

[StreetAddict]

Originally Posted by sidindica

My intention is not product bashing but I am asking a real question- is a Hyundai verna diesel CRDI an uncontrollable car at high speeds?

• I am alarmed at increasingly number of verna crdi cars being spotted at hyundai workshops with front ends completely ripped apart, suspension torn off, mangled offset crashed bodies, every third day on an average. Last week alone I think I saw about 14-15 cars in Delhi/Noida like these.
• First, I hear that the car has below average brakes, then Hyundai deletes the rear discs from SX models and equips with skinny tyres.
• No airbags, not even as an option, while the cheaper I20 has 6 of them.

Why this stepmotherly treatment in a high powered diesel sedan from Hyundai with absolute lack of safety features?

I want to ask Verna diesel owners that have they experianced any braking problem like wheels getting locked, long braking distances, uncontrollable chassis at high speeds etc?

Please post your True and honest experiences here.

Jesus Christ. When did SID made this a "Verna/Hyundai Bashing Thread" ?? The thread started as a question to the Verna owners to check if anyone faces similar issues & here they come defending Hyundai.

Mates, If you head for a road trip & you find 20 of , say "Brand-x" cars smashed up, what would be the very first thing to cross your mind? Honestly, Would you blame the driver or would you blame the car ?

Also, can someone post the technical differences (Apart from engine) between Verna Petrol & Verna D. I mean are they any different except the engine part?