Hyundai Verna Diesel Long Term Review – Second Report

The Hyundai Verna gets a 6-speed MT which is effortless to use with its smooth shifts and the light clutch. I was a wee bit disheartened with the fuel efficiency though. On my regular commute, the Verna delivered around 12.5-13.5 km/l and I was expecting the figures to be slightly higher. However, what impressed me was the engine refinement. The engine is quite silent for a diesel unit with very less noise being heard in the cabin, but our test car seemed to a vibrate a bit at idle.

Features such as ventilated seats, a light clutch and good ride quality make the Verna the ideal choice for commuting

The sedan has a pliant suspension that soaks up potholes well while handling is a drastic improvement over the older Verna. It is still not a driver’s car but it does feel so much more confident at high speeds on the highways. There was an incident where I had to brake really hard on the NH8 once when a dog ran across the road and thankfully the Verna stopped without much drama. Our car had done close to 21,000 kms at that time and since it is a media car which has been driven hard by various journos, the tyres were probably on their last legs and hence the grip felt a bit lacking in certain scenarios.

My favourite feature in the Verna has to be the ventilated seats. The ventilation function is effective and really helps in our hot climate. The AC also performs quite nicely, but on a couple of occasions when the car was parked in direct sunlight for a lot of hours, the aircon took a few minutes to cool down the cabin. I usually tilt open the sunroof in such scenarios and this helps too. The Arkamys audio system churns decent sound quality while the head unit itself is crisp to use and offered seamless connectivity with my iPhone.