Suggestions for my First Car

[netrife]

Hi All,

I am a newbie to four wheelers and plan to purchase one soon. I had recently learnt driving and still not an expert. My budget is around 4-4.5 lacs and will be going for finance. I want to keep this car for minimum 4 years.


Following are my priorities for the car in the given order

1. Ride & Seating comfort (I am 5'11'')
2. Fuel efficiently (would like to have around 15)
3. Good A.S.S & Low maintaince
4. Reasonable performance
5. Good Looks (exterior & Interior)
6. Build Quality
7. Resale value



Following are planned car usage
- 90% will be driven in city(Bangalore) and occasional trips on highway to nearby places
- I will be the only person in the car during week days. At the max there will be 3-4 people during weekend outings(me, wife & 1year old daughter).
- No special parking space for car. So need to be parked outside my rented house

As only 3 to 4 people will traveling in the car at max, I want to go for mid size hatchback rather than going for sedans. Also I am not a kind of person who wants to do racing with the car.

Being a fan of Santro because of it's tall boy design, currently I am looking at I10 as first preference.

I have dropped other cars because of below reasons

Alto :- Looks basic and not suitable for my height
Wagon R :- Don't like the shape. Also about to be phased out?
Zen estilo :- Did't like the shape
Santro Xing :- Poor interiors and a good successor
Spark :- Poor ***, GM brand and not suitable for my height
Palio stile :- Poor looks. Poor ***. Also Car may be bigger than what I really need
Getz prime :- Above the budget. Also Car may be bigger than what I really need.
Swift : Yet to completely evaluate. I like it's look. But it might be dropped because of low mileage and poor build quality. Also I might not really need the additional performance advantage that it offers.

Today I had gone to Advaith hyundai to find out I10 details and do TD. Post budget OTR price of I10 Era is 4.26L and OTR price of I10 Magna is 4.54L. Currently there are no discounts or free goodies on I10.

Looking at I10, I felt that it's interiors and space are not really as cool as they look in TV adds. But given that only 3-4 will travel at max in the car, space is probably ok for me. I liked Magna over Era for the looks, additional features and willing to stretch my budget a bit. Assuming that basic accessories like Sony Mp3 player, speakers, mud flaps, mats, sun film will cost 16k. Total ownership cost of I10 Magna will be 4.7L.

I also had a look at Getz 1.1 GVS and found that it's interiors are indeed better than I10 and it's much more spacious. Both me and my wife liked the car over I10 at the initial look. It's OTR price is 4.9L and there are free goodies like Panasonic MP3 player + 2 speaker, mud flaps, mats and a corporate discount of 9,000. So including all the accessories, total ownership cost of Getz1.1 will be around 4.9L. So we thought if we can stretch a bit more and own a Getz 1.1 GVS over I10 Magna.

But I am planning to stick to I10 because of below reasons and I need your suggestions on if my decision is correct.

1. Getz may be phased out soon after I20 release?
2. Getz model is not that popular. So poor resale value?
3. Poor pickup and mileage compared to I10 ?
4. I might not really need that big car and it may not be easy to drive getz in Bangalore traffic compared to I10

Dealer said that Getz TD vehicle is not available. So I only did TD of I10. Given that my experience in driving is less, my intention of TD is only to see if I am feeling comfortable driving I10 rather than to test it's performance and other factors(pickup, AC, handling at highspeeds etc..). I felt that I10 is easy to drive.

Currently pricing is the only factor that is coming in between me and I10.

Please suggest if it's worth spending 4.7L on I10. If not, what are the other options.

Also I enquired Advaith about i10 accessories. Following are the prices they quoted

Sony MP3 player : 7000
4 speakers (fixed in door): 2500
Remote locking : 4500
mats & mudflaps : 1500
body cover : 1500
sunfilm : 1000
-------------------------------
Total : 18000

They said that they can give some discount on this and make is 14K. Is it a good deal for accessories or is it better to go for external vendor for accessories. If so, how much do we save?

They also mentioned that Teflon and Anti-rust coating is not needed for I10 as Hyundai also does it. Is it true?


I also want to TD Swift and see if it is worth to go for Swift by compromising on fuel efficiency and build quality. But Swift is overshooting my budget way above, so probability of this happening is less.

[theMAG]

Moderator's note: You'll find all the information you need if you use the search function for car queries such as this - there are lots.

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