Hello Everyone,
My hunt for the first car started long time back and I had almost zeroed it on the Indica V2. My priorities were set to a hatch with
1. Some space for all passengers.
2. Comforting ride.
3. Practicality
and it should be diesel. I am an avid traveler and have recently just clocked 94 K kms on my pulsar (5 year old) before I got the Car. There were not many options to consider with a budget of <4.5 L (diesel) and that made Indica a better choice as I personally felt that 2 cars that fitted all perspective were an Indica and a Palio. But for a Palio I would have to shell out another 59 K in Bangalore. So made up my mind and went to Concorde motors in December 2008 and the Indica DLS (only DLE and DLS were available) was available for a steal 3.9 L OTR. I was thrilled but my wife wasn’t as she had just seen the new Indica Vista while entering the showroom which looked more like a personal car than a Taxi (well that was her reasoning)!
So back to the drawing board. A couple of months wait and it will see the entry of Ritz and Punto (speculative). Dropped the diesel factor as it would gave me a larger choice plus I wasn’t going to race with anyone either!
Options Available:
1. Alto: I LOVE this car. I had this car for 3 months and did 8k kms with 3 trips to Kerala and interior of Karnataka. But alas the space was a problem. I am 5’10 and 108 Kgs (in other words I am HUGE). How I wish Maruti added another 50mm in length to this car and I would have closed my eyes and grabbed it. That was not the case so had drop it.
2. A-Star: My first reaction was how did they even think of making something like this? Dropped straight away.
3. Zen Estilo: I am big fan of the old ZEN but this is a turnoff (personal view). Dropped.
4. Wagon R: I loved this car too and had to opt out as the stability was in question. Majority of my travel is going to be on the highways. Dropped.
5. Swift: Nothing beats this! Everything was good in this just that the rear passenger will have a stiff ride but as good things in life come at a cost I had to refrain. But I still liked it and it was a short list. And mind you its still a waiting period of 2 months for swift where as for ritz its 40 days.
6. Ritz: The new K10 engine was smooth as silk but was very disappointed with rear leg room and the boot. Frustrating times ahead. Shortlisted anyway.
7. Indica Vista: Straight away a short list. The 1.4 TDI was coming at 4.54 L OTR. The ride was even better than I expected and fact that I had read reviews on Team BHP gave me courage to look in to the not so tried and tested horse from TATA.
8. Santro: The dependable and was a practical car till I saw a santro ramming on to a tavera’s rear on Mysore road on 1 rainy weekend. I didn’t know what had caused the driver from not braking but you guys should have seen the sight. The front of the santro was completely dislocated. Not that I was going to play dashing cars but to be frank I was bit scared.
9. Punto was not there yet.
10. i10: Nice car again but space was a problem. Shortlisted anyway.
11. Getz: It assures and re-assures its stability and the built quality. Test drove a 1.3 GLS at Trident Hyundai on indira nagar 100 ft road which had already clocked 23k kms and not even a single rattling noise. But the sales guy wasn’t interested to sell anything to me probably thinking that I wasn’t serious and asked me if I was there before. Well it was their loss. The next day I walked in to Advaith on Residency road and there was this guy called Manju who was following up since the time I had enquired about i10 some 4 months back. Test drove the CRDI and boy it felt like a rocket. At 5.88 L OTR I was bruised. There was no 1.1 version available for a test drive but hey I have driven the santro. Additional 6 horses and 150 Kgs was the bargain for 12,000 monies that comes with lots of space and safety.(Santro was 4.12 L GLS OTR and 1.1 GLE was 4.24 L OTR)
Now was back at home and had to write the script which fitted the climax. For the space that was given to all the passengers plus boot it was the getzy winner. Ride comfort: I think the Getz was growing on to me and it got the maximum marks. Practicality: Getz again lots of storage space, rear seats can fold 60:40 plus the entire rear seat can be folded, Rear seat has 3 inclination settings, has a complete sedan feeling and the dead pedal which is a boon in highway driving. I must thank sjcherian and Krish82 for confirming my notion about the Getz. Sj’s review gave lot of confidence on the build factor of Getz and Krish reconfirming that the 1.1 can live up to the expectations.
So? I walked in to Advaith, paid the down payment and I was thrilled when I got to know that I could take the delivery of the car on 29th June. Religiously went through the PDC drafted here on the Team BHP site, came up with minor issues which were rectified immediately. Took the keys and was off. Little that I realized that the first thing I normally do once I am inside the car was to wear my seat belt but that day was very different and emotional.
That was the better part, now for not so good part.
• One would need some time to get adjusted to the view because the pillars create huge blind spots.
• The rear view mirrors doesn’t exactly give you a bigger picture of the traffic behind you
• The beige interiors can get dirty very easily.
• Stock headlights needs upgrade.
Price: Rs. 4, 24,143 L on Road (359,000 ex showroom plus 12,753 Insurance plus 47,390 Road tax and 5000 handling charges.) Additionally I paid Rs. 3025 for 3rd year warranty and Rs 14,000 for a Panasonic HU and 4 JBL speakers (2 of them are component speakers fitted in the front doors)
My current ODO reads 1626 Kms, got my first servicing done at 1325 when the fuel indicator turned on so assuming that it would only have 5 lts as reserve I would have fed it with 88 lts of fuel which returned me a millage of little more than 15 km/ltr (this is inclusive of 1065 kms that I have travelled through Bangalore – Guruvayoor – Bangalore with 100% AC) and my upcoming trips are to ooty this weekend, kannur during next weekend and Trivandrum during 1 st week of sept for Onam.
Experience: Its priceless!
Regards,
Sunil