Comparo - New Skoda Rapid vs new Vento vs City vs Ciaz vs Verna

26/09/2014 - 10:20 | ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,   | Anjan Ravi

VW and group company Skoda launched the updated Vento and Rapid respectively over the last couple of days. The updates to these sedans focus only on the diesel variants as they are now given the more advanced 1.5-liter four-cylinder TDI unit. Additionally, the diesel variants of these cars come with an automatic transmission as well, giving some much needed competition to the Verna which until now was the lone car in its class with this feature.

Speaking about dimensions, the new Rapid and Vento see no changes. As a result, the pecking order here remains unchanged with the Linea being the longest in its class, followed by the upcoming Ciaz and Sunny respectively. In terms of wheelbase, the Ciaz gets a class-leading 2,650 mm followed by the Linea's 2,603 mm and the City's and Sunny's 2,600 mm.

New Skoda Rapid vs new VW Vento vs Honda City vs Maruti Ciaz vs Hyundai Verna

In terms of engine power and torque, the 1.5 TDI from VW produces identical numbers to its 1.6 TDI predecessor. And that again means that the pecking order is left unchanged here as well: The Verna 1.6 is the most powerful, and the Sunny is the least powerful of the lot.

All cars come with a 5- or 6-speed manual transmission as standard. For the first time in this segment, the Rapid and Vento diesels are available with a 7-speed DSG transmission. Competition for these variants comes only from the Verna 1.6 AT, which uses an old-school 4-speed torque converter.

Thanks to the DSG, the Rapid AT and Vento AT deliver better efficiency than their manual counterparts. However, in pure numbers, the Ciaz claims to be the most efficient at 26.21 km/l, followed by the City's 26 km/l.

In terms of pricing, the manual variants of the new cars continue with largely similar pricing as their predecessors. However, its the prices of the automatic transmission variants which has got people talking. The DSG-equipped diesel variants of the Rapid and Vento are priced between INR 10.49 - 10.97 lakhs, ex-Showroom Delhi, whereas the Verna AT costs significantly more at INR 10.68 - 11.72 lakhs.

It should also be mentioned that the top-end variants of the Rapid and Vento DSG are priced lower than the top-end variants of the new City and Verna MT.

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