[rohitgaur]

Sell the figo, buy the Used Honda i Dtec, or a Renault Duster/Nissan Terrano
This shall also come in your Budget I guess say 7-9 Lakhs all inclusive
A duster RXZ, Topend fully loaded 2012 will be in the range of 8-8.5 lakhs

The Civic is a Petrol Guzzler and 7 years old Civic will give you equal pain as the Figo
Also the Safari is an Outdated design and Tata reliability has gone for a Toss.
Go for a Used Car, but 2013-2014 model, Low Mileage on the Odo to get the latest style and less abused vehicle in Bangalore itself
You will save on initial Registration Cost, Initial Insurance and will get the car at Depreciated value and usually we get them fully loaded when they are so new
We are in a lateral Upgrade thread, Going for a 2006 Civic will be called a Downgrade IMHO.

[kablu]

Hi Friends,
Here is a little bit of background which pushed me think about lateral upgrade.

I recently sold my 2001 Hyundai Accent and bought a 2008 Swift Vxi which was in pristine condition and clocked only 25K Kms. I hardly did 1000 Kms in the swift and the Odo is standing at 26K Kms now

I also own a Oct 2013 RE CL350 which is my daily steed. It has done 19K Kms as of now.

My daily ride to office is a 55 Km round trip. In spite of the distance, I enjoy the ride since its an RE . However, I've developed symptoms of back pain now and have been strictly advised against long commutes. So here comes the end of my daily RE Rides.

Now, I should be using my Swift for daily commute to office and RE might find minimal or no usage at all in the coming days. Considering the situations, Here are the options in front of me to choose.

1) Use car for all purposes and sell the bull. Get a used Activa for chores
2) Use car for alternate days, Mon-Wed-Fri. Bike for Tue-Thu.
3) Sell both Swift and Bull. Get a pre worshiped diesel hatch and a scooter.

I have an affinity towards Option 3) for the obvious benefits in terms of fuel bills and sort of permanent lifestyle change/solution.

Option 1) will gift me huge fuel bills.
Option 2) doesn't sound like a permanent solution. I dished out this option only because of the bulleteer in me

Now, I need opinions/suggestions from you experts in implementing Option 3).

I did a preliminary homework and figured out that my swift will fetch me around 2.7L when sold to dealers and more depending on my negotiation skills when sold to an individual. I have a buyer ready for my bull who is offering 1.1L. All in all, I will be left with around 3.7 to 4L to buy a decently maintained diesel hatch and a scooter.

Please let me know if there is any scope for betterment in my decision. And what are the diesel hatches that can be considered for the given budget.
I understand that the maintenance for Diesels are a bit high. But, would love to have a car that gives me niggle-free ownership.


Note: This is my first thread that seeks help/solution. The other one being my Intro thread. So, Please let me know if I've missed providing any info and, suggestions of all sorts. Be it related to the actual query, my language, my problem solving approach, etc. I'll be more than thankful for all the suggestions.

Note to Mods: Dear mods, Please feel free to edit the content which may sound/look irrelevant and merge this thread if already a thread of this sort is existing. I am not able to find a similar thread exactly deals with my problem.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by kablu

Use car for alternate days, Mon-Wed-Fri. Bike for Tue-Thu.

No point changing both your rides right away, that would be a hasty decision.

- First go with option 2. Alternating between the two might just work out better for your back.

- Question is, why have you developed back pain? Is there any exercise you can do to reduce it?

Related Threads:

Link 1

Link 2

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by kablu

2) Use car for alternate days, Mon-Wed-Fri. Bike for Tue-Thu.

Option 2 - only change being - use the car on Tues, Wed, Thurs and bike on Monday and Friday. It will give your back more time to recover between rides (if that indeed is the reason for your back pain). Plus, your Monday blues will disappear by the time you reach office after a nice long Bullet ride

Cheers,
Vikram

[kablu]

Originally Posted by GTO

- Question is, why have you developed back pain? Is there any exercise you can do to reduce it?

Related Threads:

Link 1

Link 2

Thanks GTO for the suggestion and pointing the related urls. To answer you question, I am a weight training person working in IT. Got a severe back injury few years before while I was training. this coupled with the long bike commute to office seem to be the reason for back pain cropping up again.
Currently, I'm not doing any specific exercises for back pain as it just started cropping up again.

[Gansan]

The Bullet has a hard seat. I have never really felt comfortable on it for long, either riding it or sitting pillion.

[ani_meher]

Originally Posted by kablu

1) Use car for all purposes and sell the bull. Get a used Activa for chores
2) Use car for alternate days, Mon-Wed-Fri. Bike for Tue-Thu.
3) Sell both Swift and Bull. Get a pre worshiped diesel hatch and a scooter.

The difference between a petrol and a diesel car running is about Rs.1.5 to 2 per km. Even if you buy a diesel and use it daily for 110kms, in one year it will cost you around 50k less. How much are you losing on selling your petrol car now?

I too agree with above posters: use both car and bike for office, that too monday-friday bike and remaining days car. See for one month what happens, what is the effect on health or fuel bills. Since it is only mid Feb, there is no news of sudden increase in car prices in next one month.

[kablu]

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

Option 2 - only change being - use the car on Tues, Wed, Thurs and bike on Monday and Friday. It will give your back more time to recover between rides (if that indeed is the reason for your back pain). Plus, your Monday blues will disappear by the time you reach office after a nice long Bullet ride

Cheers,
Vikram

That's a nice suggestion Vikram. Thanks for this. I'll start try this routine right away.

Originally Posted by Gansan

The Bullet has a hard seat. I have never really felt comfortable on it for long, either riding it or sitting pillion.

I think effect of hard seat is felt when the distance is longer. I didn't faced any issues when my daily commute distance use to be 10 Kms one way.

Originally Posted by ani_meher

The difference between a petrol and a diesel car running is about Rs.1.5 to 2 per km. Even if you buy a diesel and use it daily for 110kms, in one year it will cost you around 50k less. How much are you losing on selling your petrol car now?

Mate, Thanks for the response. I did some math and arrived almost at the figures you mentioned. The fact that influenced for the upgrade is, I would shell out a max of 40K for the upgrade if I consider any Swift Diesel variants of the same vintage. The cost of upgrade will be less if Punto, Fiestas of same vintage are considered. This, going by the prevailing used car prices in Chennai. I didn't factored the difference in the maintenance cost, resale value after 5 years, etc., May be I should do an in depth financial analysis.
Back to the point, Even if I save 24K to 30K per annum, my break-even point will be 1.5 years. That's a 1L rupee saved if I retain the car for a total of 5 years. Again, all these thoughts came just out of my mind and I don't have any data to back up my points. In fact, what I'm looking out here for is the data to arrive at a beneficial option.

[asit.kulkarni93]

Hello kablu,

I think retaining the swift petrol and using it makes more sense than going in for a used diesel hatch.

If you use your swift for your daily commute of 55kms, you are roughly spending about 90k/ annum. The service costs for a swift petrol which has barely done 26k kms won't be much.

With a used swift diesel you will have a lesser running cost which roughly should be about 50k/ annum on fuel but diesels in the used market in general have clocked a lot of kms which translates to higher upkeep costs.

I am sure this 40k difference will be reduced once you also consider the service costs. If you consider other diesel cars like the punto or fiesta, the story won't be any different when it comes to the service costs.

I personally feel you should stick to option 2.

Asit

[drmohitg]

I would suggest that you tend to your back more than these mathematical numbers. You are already well informed and well read regarding the problem in your back. So don't aggravate it as back pain can really become annoying and chronic. I will suggest moving to a car with a comfortable back seat full time and keeping the bike ( if you want) for small trips. A Ritz diesel or Figo diesel would easily fit in your budget. Ritz being a car with higher seating might be more comforting for the back.

[Abhi_rx]

I'm looking to dispose my 85K done 2008 Swift Dzire VDI for a Honda Accord, 2009 Elegance MT with 68K on the odo. Asking price is 7L (Negotiable) in Chennai. This will be my only ride. It will not be a daily drive i have an RX100 for office commute.

Im so pampered with the Maruti ASS experience and niggle free ownership that im a bit apprehensive about the Accord especially since its done close to 70K. Will the Accord be expensive to maintain and run? How much should i expect to spend on the average servicing cost and spares. Also how much mileage figures should i expect.

The Accord will be used sparingly, mostly for vacations which might involve 1200K roadtrips every 4 months. Please advise.

[ChupaRustam]

inspired by this thread, I decided to sell off my old workhorse (wagonr 2008) that I had purchased 2 yrs ago and get a fundamentally advanced car, with a budget of approx 6 to 7 lakes.
I wanted a roomier, larger, safer,trustworthy, more featured, newer, more comfy, AT. This boiled down to Honda/verna of 2013, which would still be in original warranty. I tried for over 1.5 months, but unfortunately could not succeed in getting a single decent car, even though I came across many many cars in the budget.

Eventually I took a brand new Ciaz automatic (review will come soon). Here are the learnings from used car search:
- good used cars in decent price are rare. Very rare.
- a huge majority of the used cars have a major problem. You need to constantly ask yourself - why is the seller selling the car
- a very large number of sellers will either lie about the car or hide info. Many will hide info such as accidents or major repairs
- without exception, call the service centres and enquire about the service history. Call different service centres as some will either not divulge the details or make excuses such as system not working. Ask for all jobs done and compete history. Better go to a service centre and tell one mechanic that you will buy this car but tell me what all has been done.
- almost all cars will have odometer tampered. Particularly the ones sold by dealers. Even the showroom cars. Tell you what - all the 2013 cars I saw had done between 11-14k Kim's or 21-24k kms. Is it a coincidence? I don't know how people on this forum are so confident that they bought so and so car with only xxxx kms. Even if they give you the KMs in writing, it doesn't hold much value, as they are just writing the odometer reading at the time of selling.
A large number of older cars will also be showing 45-49 k. I think it's because of people's mentality such as "I want max 10-15k driven car" or "under 50k" car. One way to check odometer tampering is by trying to look inside the glass for dust settlement. In short, never care about KMS done unless it's from your known person.
- get a good mechanic from an unofficial garage. Those are the people who do all the dirty work in the city. They get to fix all the grey market cars and know a lot. They will tell whether a car is repainted in a few seconds.
- for older cars not in warranty, expect the worst. Make sure that engine and frame are fully perfect. Unless you are buying from a very trusted friend or a known relative, most cars you see will be the ones which are rejected by many.
- try to buy directly from an individual who lives in a bungalow. A guy with lot of money will be unlikely to lie too much.
- dealers will sell at higher than highest of Cartrade prices and buy at lower than lowest of Carwale prices. You will have to shun a lot of deals if you want a good price
-many times people fix a major problem in unofficial garages, so that it doesn't show in service record or car history. Luckily most of these garages do shoddy work of covering it up. I caught many cars were you could see 1 foot long repair work done under the spare wheel. From outside the car looked fantastic.
- poor sellers should be avoided at all costs. Including scalas and fiestas. Their owners know that they won't sell much, so often stretch them to their fullest and use them the hardest.
- a car that doesn't look neat and clean can be avoided. However just because it is neat does not mean that it is a worthwhile buy.
- check all documents visually yourself or take a mechanic/friend who will check it. One showroom was selling me a car saying it had all service records,saying threat I can have the trust of the big showroom. But on insisting I found that there was no entry in service booklet.
-just because seller is asking for a high price does not mean the car is good one. The seller could be bluffing.
- online ads are often fake. One car comes for sale in market and many people start putting ads for it. On the contrary if you put an ad for sale, zillions of brokers will contact you to sell on your behalf.
- last but not the least, can't agree more with the below:

Originally Posted by GTO

The right way to Lateral-Upgrading

• Patience is a virtue:.

Happy shopping for used cars.

[IshaanIan]

Originally Posted by ChupaRustam

inspired by this thread, I decided to sell off my old workhorse (wagonr 2008) that I had purchased 2 yrs ago and get a fundamentally advanced car, with a budget of approx 6 to 7 lakes.
I wanted a roomier, larger, safer,trustworthy, more featured, newer, more comfy, AT. This boiled down to Honda/verna of 2013, which would still be in original warranty. I tried for over 1.5 months, but unfortunately could not succeed in getting a single decent car, even though I came across many many cars in the budget.

Eventually I took a brand new Ciaz automatic (review will come soon). Here are the learnings from used car search:

I believe the two most important factors are patience and experience. Each car has its own market and thus spending time would help you better understand buyers/sellers of each kind of car. I felt somewhat like you did about 5 years back I was young and inexperienced back then, on the lookout for a Civic. Now, I am able to judge the condition of a car on my own (whether its been in an accident, whether its been repainted, how the motor is, how the bushes and engine mount is, how the suspension is, how the brakes are etc. even gauging a buyer or seller has become a little easier ) and that has made things much easier for me. Buying a used car is not always difficult and if it is, just take a friend who has experience, along with you. 4-5 deals later, you will be confident enough to do this stuff on your own.

[pramodkumar]

Originally Posted by ChupaRustam

car is good one. The seller could be bluffing.
- online ads are often fake. One car comes for sale in market and many people start putting ads for it

An amazing thing I have seen these days with the so called "increase in online classifieds penetration", everybody needs the max money for their used stuff. So people look at some cars of the same brand and start asking similar money for their average looking cars, soon the rest of the sellers follow and finally that becomes market rates.

I like Yamaha 2 Stroke bikes and the difference between a fully restored and a scrap bike is less than 3-4K and for that money a clunker cannot be turned to a gem. With sellers getting higher number of calls, chances of closing a unrealistic deal is higher. The market dynamics has been affected. It makes more sense to buy a new car than going for a little used car these days.

Pramod

[jaysmokesleaves]

Originally Posted by GTO

No point changing both your rides right away, that would be a hasty decision.

GTO - Im driving a March 2008 Safari Dicor Ex 4x4. Its just turned 7 yrs old as i write this.
Its working absolutely fine, has given me no trouble and I enjoy driving it.
However, im itching for an upgrade. It has to be another suv with 4x4 capability and be a capable tourer.

What would you suggest from the preowned market?