What I needed:
My requirement was for a neat family car mid-sized and with a high seating position, comfortable yet agile to maneuver in the narrower parts of Hyderabad, and to be kept for the long term. ABS was a necessity - learning from an experience I had in a Maruti 800 a few years back (so I was evaluating only the top end ABS model in each car). My drive is a 50 KM per day predominantly in the city and an occasional long highway ride. Further, I needed some nice gadgetry and conveniences to give me a feel of sophistication.
50KM is a borderline on the petrol-diesel decision and I definitely had power as a requirement. Hence my initial consideration was only a petrol vehicle. I began with test driving different petrol cars:
What I evaluated: Ford Fusion+ Petrol:
+: Powerful, spacious and decent interiors, a cross over with a hint of an SUV and internals of a sedan. Practical for city driving and with most gadgetry in plus version
-: Not mainstream (may be a + in fact) and not a demonstrated favourite on TBHP, "Ford", love or hate the shape, nothing in between
Ford Fiesta SXi Petrol:
+: Same internals as Fusion, decent looker
-: "Ford", top end model does not come with alloys or mp3 player
Maruti SX4 ZXi:
+: Powerful, spacious, massive, maruti, all gadgetry one can ask for. My thread on TBHP asking for help largely recommended an SX4
-: The backseat middle hump (the singlemost reason I dropped it), side and rear visibility, wife didn't like looks
Chevrolet Aveo 1.6:
+: Deadly looker, beautiful colours, great interiors, wife loved the looks and interior
-: The gear shift - though was said to be improved still gave the feel of a laparoscope into the engine's workings, the 1.6 with ABS was expensive
Mitsubishi Cedia:
I came to know such a car existed only from TBHP and promptly TDed it.
+: Great looks, neat interiors, full gadgetry, decent performance, option of LPG
-: Tugs at the budget a bit
Inclination:
I had taken off the lovely SX4, Aveo and Cedia from my list for the reasons mentioned above - something I realised is that there is no bad car, and one just needs to fit a car to his/her requirements.
Here, I was left with Fusion and Fiesta. I was inclined towards the Fusion+, which has almost the same features as Fiesta, but for the air bags (in top end model) and a 90 litre lesser boot. The slight extra interior space, factory alloys, a high ground clearance, easier city driving and the SUVish styling were the plusses. Owner reviews at the Fusion yahoo group (
fordfusion : Ford Fusion owners and enthusiasts) and TBHP were largely positive and I got the spare price list from the dealer which were not too bad. There was also a 4 year warranty option with a 2 year total maintenance plan available. Dealers in Hyderabad were decent too - so welcome to Ford!
I also researched a bit and found the Fusion is fairly popular in Europe actually being priced about 3 - 3.5K pounds higher than the Fiesta hatchback there. I realised that the model here is almost the same as elsewhere, except for higher end options as airbags, blue tooth etc. available there.
Phew, this is when the fuel price increase came in and future trends pointed to a further deepening of the difference between petro land diesel. The diesel was a reasonable bet for me at the earlier prices and given the trend, diesel now seemed to be the perfect choice in my excel sheets. My craving for power waned when I realised that the torque is actually higher in a diesel car though the power is lesser. I was not aware of this before, and some thanks go to TBHP for this.
So the evaluation now started again with a blank slate, now for diesels. Well, this is going to be long, I warn you, and is to be continued.
cheers: