[blue_pulsar]

How many agree that this design is comparatively boring? It appears confused. I initially thought it was a Toyota when I saw the alert on facebook.I can see hints of Ciaz as well. As others have stated, they have not provided rear discs and rear AC vent (something which even the Grand i10 has). Overall, it is a missed opportunity. But considering the competition, looks okay.

[advaitlele]

Not impressed with the overall package.
except for segment first six airbags, nothing is worth pulling prospects to Hyundai showroom from Honda or Maruti.

A lost opportunity I would say - by omitting six speed AT, rear AC, rear-restyling (its too subtle and majority wont even notice) and rear seat comfort compared to its bigger rivals, City and Ciaz.

On design front, this is a blend of so many other rivals - Headlamps look like that of Ciaz, front grill looks borrowed from Toyota, crease on the side profiles look similar to the City. Confused designers at Hyundai?

Not to worry H and MS; H is not going to eat your pie.

[volkman10]

Hyundai seems to have concentrated more on the 'bling' factor in this facelift. They have also grossly gone wrong in its pricing the variants which now clearly is left to City and Ciaz to rule this segment.

[darsa]

Originally Posted by S2!!!

What you'll like:

• Hyundai's fuss-free ownership experience & excellent after-sales service

What you won't:

Hi,

Thanks for the excellent review.

If excellent after sales service is a positive then "Expensive after sales service" should also be a point that could be added to "What you won't like"

There is considerable evidence on the forum itself that talks about Hyundai's being expensive to maintain.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...sed-again.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...practices.html

Thanks.

[RSR]

Excellent review, S2!!! Nice photos too - rated it 5* as usual, thank you!

The positive things about this facelift - the new nose looks sharper and is welcome, as are the projector headlamps from the S variant onwards! The few small additional features such as 1GB on-board memory on the audio (does it get phone book & call log access now?), rain-sensing wipers, cup-holders on the rear armrest etc. are not a big deal, but good to have nevertheless. While ABS on the base variant is also welcome, a driver airbag would have made it much sweeter.

Of course, the biggest improvement seems to be the suspension, with the elimination of those "thuds" and unwanted up-down movement on undulations. This, along with the mild tweaks to the steering, should make the handling neutral without that nervousness which was present earlier. It may not have the ride & handling balance of its Euro rivals, but it's good that dynamics are no longer a source of complaint in the Verna.

The negatives - the rear disc brakes have gone for good from all variants! And while they may have added a bit more support to the rear seat base and put in a legroom adjust lever, the height adjustable neck restraints have been replaced by fixed ones.

The rear bumper looks like it has been beefed up by an additional 5 mm, but they still have only embedded reflectors, and no rear fog lamp. It's stupid of them not to provide LED DRLs (which are present on the Solaris) on the front fog lamps units.

The variant spread is the most baffling bit on the 4S Verna. These are the ex-showroom prices for Chennai:



The 1.4 litre engines (both petrol and diesel) are offered only on the base variant, which is quite silly of them. If anything, the Ciaz has shown that many customers in this segment don't necessarily demand powerful engines, and are quite happy with adequate ones. When this is the case, why offer the adequate 1.4 litre engines only on the base variant (without even a driver airbag)?

Engines with a displacement of more than 1.5 litres attract a higher excise slab, which is why none of the competition have an engine that displaces more than 1500cc (except the petrol unit on the Vento & Rapid petrol). The Verna's 1600cc engines puts it at a disadvantage on the excise slab. To work around this, they should have offered the 1.4 litre option on the S variant as well, in both petrol and diesel. This way, they could have boasted of the highest on-paper displacement and power figures (1.6 litres with 123PS & 128 PS), while having plenty of lower priced variants at the same time.

Their automatic variant strategy is also questionable. The 1.6 VTVT Auto is offered only in S(O) trim level, while the 1.6 CRDi VGT Auto only on the SX variant, and the prices of both go above the 1 million rupee mark, ex-showroom. This is a very silly strategy! Considering that Automatics are going to be primarily owner-driven in this segment, both the petrol and diesel automatics should have come on the S and S(O) trim levels only, and this would have also kept the auto 'box variants prices lower.

They need to correct this immediately and come up with additional variants, namely:

1) 1.4 VTVT S [Manual]

2) 1.4 CRDi S [Manual]

3) 1.6 VTVT S [Auto]

4) 1.6 CRDi VGT S [Auto]

5) 1.6 CRDi VGT S(O) [Auto]

To make room for the above, they can axe the following variants from the line-up:

1) 1.6 VTVT S [Manual]

2) 1.6 CRDi VGT S [Manual]

3) 1.6 CRDi VGT SX [Auto]

[gurudutt]

The review is bang on time, i was just reading about the launch in news articles. Its mostly a facelift from what it seems like. Not so impressed with the refresh, seems more like a last minute thought to stay in the competition.

[advaninilesh]

Great review. I think the redesigned front bumper and boomerang shaped fog lamps give the 4S a sportier edge compared to the City and the Ciaz. Also the new headlamp projectors look much cooler. Hope Hyundai have pulled off everything they could to improve the suspension and steering response of the Verna. 😊

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

1. Rear disc brakes: Instead of providing bling features rain sensing wipers and auto headlamps, it will be much more useful to rather have rear disc brakes.

Playing the devil's advocate, I do not understand the hue and cry regarding the omission of rear disc brakes. As a positive, the review says that ABS is now offered across the range, which is actually a welcome move. The highly regarded segment leaders - Ciaz, Fiesta, Vento, Rapid, City, none of these offer rear discs. Linea offers it only on the T-Jet version. So, why should Hyundai care? The next argument is enthusiasts care about it. But was the Verna an enthusiast's car any time? It is always been reported that Verna's suspension and steering is nowhere near to an enthusiast's taste. So, it is actually logical for a company to cater tot he mass market, by offering features that actually attract the majority buyers. Unless it is proven that it has affected the braking efficiency (like the L and V variants of Swift), I don't see a point for this negative criticism.

[RavenAvi]

Solid little review! Rated it a deserving 5-full stars!!

The Verna "4S" looks fresh from the front, with it's dual-slat grille complimenting the next-gen fluidic looks quite well. The projectors are any day a great addition to any car, and enhance it's appeal a lot more. BUT, and that's a big BUT, there finishes the appeal of this C2-segment Hyundai. The side profile is almost the same as earlier, and still as bland. And the rear tweaks are blink-and-you-miss.

Nothing substantial to the interiors, with even the steering wheel carried forward from the old Verna. The least Hyundai could have done, is give it the steering of the Elite i20.

And what is with Hyundai and removing features from their newer offerings these days? The Elite i20 lost a bunch of segment-leading features when compared to the fluidic i20, and now the Verna 4S loses some as well when compared to the Fluidic Verna. Prices go up marginally, and lesser features come into the equation. This way, Hyundai could be shooting themselves in the foot with regards to new sales. But, this 4S version of the Verna is possibly the last of this generation Verna's life-cycle, so maybe the all-new Verna (due in 2-3 years' time), will have all the missing features back, and grab some all-new ones as well. Who knows?

Prices are pretty much stacked up against the City & the Vento. The Verna 4S might continue it's modest monthly sales tally, as I don't see a much bigger improvement in it's numbers. The City & the Ciaz can breathe easy.

Here's how the Verna 4S stacks up, against it's direct competitors vis-a-vis prices across variants:

(sorted in the order of the cheapest entry-level variant to the costliest)

DIESEL:





PETROL:

All prices are ex-showroom, Delhi, and are taken from the respective car company websites. Volkswagen Vento's prices are taken from Carwale.

[ramprakashr]

Originally Posted by RSR

The 1.4 litre engines (both petrol and diesel) are offered only on the base variant, which is quite silly of them. If anything, the Ciaz has shown that many customers in this segment don't necessarily demand powerful engines, and are quite happy with adequate ones. When this is the case, why offer the adequate 1.4 litre engines only on the base variant (without even a driver airbag)?

When sales numbers started dipping late 2014, they introduced a CX variant on the 1.4L VTVT and CRDI. It was a very good package and now they have conveniently excluded it. More details about the erstwhile CX variant here : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...x-variant.html

Why have an engine just to claim the "Starts at $$$$$" and ARAI figures?

[PearlJam]

Originally Posted by RSR

Engines with a displacement of more than 1.5 litres attract a higher excise slab, which is why none of the competition have an engine that displaces more than 1500cc (except the petrol unit on the Vento & Rapid petrol). The Verna's 1600cc engines puts it at a disadvantage on the excise slab

I think the excise advantage applies only for engine size less than 1.5L for Diesel (and 1.2 for Petrol), as well as a length of less than 4 metres. So I don't think Vento and Rapid qualify for excise advantages.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Great review but I have my reservations if this can really challenge the 2 segment leaders. That battle will still be fought between the City and the Ciaz.

It won't. The facelift is like one last punch from an ageing, tired boxer, before the all-new generation enters India. This is also Hyundai's attempt at keeping its showroom as 'fresh' as possible.

Originally Posted by ravinemala

Is it that difficult to adjust the height?

Can't just raise the seat height like that. Among other things, it'll result in serious headroom issues.

Originally Posted by knight.rider

Think the absence of a CVT is still the verna's achilles heel.

CVT? I prefer torque-converter ATs & DSGs over the CVT. Any particular reason you mentioned CVTs? Only a handful of manufacturers (e.g. Nissan) sell a CVT in India today.

Originally Posted by PPS

How many people end up buying the 1.4 engines?

The 1.4 helps to draw customers into the showroom with its low price, post which salesmen are trained to switch them over to more expensive variants / bigger engines. Notice how these base variants usually have the longest waiting periods (they are intentionally produced in lesser numbers).

The 1.4 might also appeal to fleet owners or the chauffeur-driven type who don't care what's under the hood.

[sukhoi]

Very good review S2. Thanks for that. Rated *****

My observations:
1) A key positive is that ABS has been made standard across all variants (good that they are paying some attention to safety). Airbags should also be standardized across all variants I feel (recall reading in the papers some time back around this that in future, do not recollect exact date, all cars would mandatorily have airbags).

2) Looks very good too, would be a matter of individual choice but I find the looks very nice

3) On the downside, removing the rear dis brakes is a bad thing to do. As mentioned earlier, that is a feature that should have been retained

4) Rear AC vents are becoming common now so those should have been introduced, especially when other cars from Hyundai stable have it already.

Cheers

[vnagarajs]

Seems like they have removed the fuel consumption related info like average and instantaneous mileage in the MID.

[Aficionados]

Just read the news of this 4S Verna launch on net and had a gut feeling that review should be up on Team-BHP! Hats off to Team-BHP efforts to bring the review on the day of launch

Now coming to the Verna, this is a mere facelift and IMO it cannot compete with City or Ciaz which are new generation models and not facelifts.

Lets look from buyers perspective: Roughly C2 sedan buyers can be categorized into Chauffer Driven & Self Driven (hatches are mostly self driven & D+ cars are mostly chauffer driven, excluding SUV's/MUV's here).

As a self driven buyer, I may compromise on the rear seat comfort & space, but would I compromise on the handling/cornering/suspensions which looses my interest in the car as a enthusiast! In such a scenario, why should I not pick Linea or Fiesta which are equally loaded (and more) & fun to drive?

As a chuffer driven buyer, I can not compromise on rear space & comfort, and the rear a/c. In such scenario, why should I not pick City or Ciaz which provides great comfort & space like D segment cars? and are equally loaded!

The only USP remains in Verna is 128 BHP on tap, but without a good handling package I don't think it will keep enthusiasts happy.