[drabhayshah76]

Originally Posted by kiku007

The joke is on the Owners actually. Cars like Dzire have poor rear bench space even by hatch standards. The addition of an ridiculous, obnoxious boot (+100 odd litres?) covered by the thinnest metal in Indian Auto History converts a capable smart looking hatch into an eye sore in the name of a compact sedan. But it sells. Welcome to India.

Agree with you. I own an Etios Diesel Sedan and my friend bought a brand new Swift Dzire VDi. With due respect to Dzire owners and no offence meant, when i sat on the rear bench seat in his dzire, i did not feel comfortable at all, the rear leg room as well as seating comfort is way much below than the Etios. Also the back rest angle in Dzire is more upright as compared to the Etios wherein you just relax. This is my observation and again no offence meant to Dzire owners.

[drabhayshah76]

Originally Posted by zenren

IMO, Compact sedans and compact SUVs are ending up as just a new way for the manufacturers to rip off the customers in the name of lower excise duty and lower price.

When Indigo CS was originally introduced and when the new DZire was introduced with a price cut, the benefits of lower excise duty (~60k I think) was passed on to the customers. Same when Amaze and Ecosport were launched, with the base variants priced attractively to give an impression of VFM 'sedan' and 'SUV'.

What we saw later was the price revisions and moving a chunk of the amount gained out of excise duty into their profit margins. What Tata did was the ideal way of dealing with it - have a hatch, CS and a full size sedan so that the customers can choose. What Maruti did was something different - withdraw the full size sedan option and force the customers to buy CS so that the segment is perceived to be a super hit. Given a choice of a full size DZire alongside the CS, it would have been interesting to see how many would have went for CS to save 60k.

Same goes with Ecosport - they met all the requirements of a compact SUV to save taxes and launched at an amazing launch price, but the current prices of the higher variants doesn't seem to reflect it being fully passed on to the customers. Moreover, Ecosport doesn't have a hatch sibling against which we can have a sanity check of the price. Are we really gaining anything by compromising on a quirkier and smaller car if we are not really getting the price advantage?

Very well said. I agree with you.

[Equus]

While I agree with most points here, dont quite undersatand how the compact sedans are not safe equally safe as the hatches they are based on?

I am not sure of the status piece - sedan being higher than hatch, especially now a days with so many premium hatches around.

IMO, the key aspect for choosing the compact sedan is extended leg-room and the bootspace for the occasional long drive. Offcourse if they could afford City/Vento/etc, they would buy that.. Sometimes the compact car (hatch or sedan) would be the 2nd car too..

[Inquisitive]

I myself went through this dilemma in May this year while upgrading from my 9-year old Alto. As is true for most of us, a natural upgrade would have been a sedan and given the price bracket of regular sedans, we could only explore CS variants. What I found was unless you really need a statement to make, CS is a no-go for the following reasons:
1)Inside space- bigger hatches offer better legroom in the rear (compare figo, liva, i20 or i10grand, polo, ritz etc. with indigo cs, amaze, dzire).
2) CS boot space- how much more do they offer in practical terms over the hatches mentioned above? How often do you actually pack your boot to the level that the hatches cannot handle?
3) In terms of creature comforts, the top end of the hatches mentioned above offer you a better deal than a CS trim offered at a similar price point.
4) Safety features- again, at a similar price band higher trim hatches offer you more safety than CS.
4) My conclusion is, money permitting go for a regular sedan or else a bigger hatch is always a better option. Its the people inside the car and their comforts that matter more than an scarecely used external boot.

I ended up buying Liva.

[selfdrive]

While I agree with the OP and the subject of the thread, I also wonder what is the rationale behind having different tax/ duty rates based on a 4metre limit? Is it that a few extra centimeters really cause more traffic blockages?
My question, is what is the logic at arriving at a 4 metres cutoff? who came upon that number and when? Why not 4.5 metres or 3.5 for that matter! and considering that nowadays we are falling short of carriagewidth why not come up with a width restriction too?

In fact it would be better to have different tax rates based on fuel comsumption.

In my case, I went for a Jazz which seems (and probably is!) much safer than other compact sedans. It definitely is more spacious for sure.

[skyfire2892]

I have an Amaze and will try to put some neutral points about it.

What I got
1. Big boot, a 250L wouldn't work out for me as I pack big on regular basis. A 400L is more accommodating and practical.
2. Leg Room. Just throw away any advertisement highlighting Amaze's space, go to a Honda showroom and sit in the car. You'll know it!
3. With 9 bottle holders+pockets+glovebox(small) you cannot be out of space in any way.
3. Efficiency. A Rs 1000 top up and a 500km trip. Done and done!
4. Powerful Engine. 99BHP, 92BHP/ton
5. Honda's reliability.

What I lose
1. Hatchbacks provide bluetooth and generally a better ICE. Indica Vista ZX+ comes with navigation.
2. Amaze doesn't even have a DTE while hatchbacks provide full MID, glove box cooling, sunglass holder, dead pedal
2. 60:40 split increases flexibility.
3. Hot hatchbacks like Polo GT TSI/TDI, Punto Sport become enthusiast's love.
4. Start/stop button and request sensors. One of the best things in top end hatchbacks. They come with parking sensors too.
5. Generally a more silent engine(i20)
6. Aftermarket accessories are more suited on a hatchback.

Styling
On any day cars like Verna, City are way better looking than Amaze.

About stretching the budget- Our budget was around 8L, we stretched it to 8.7L to get top variant which provides Airbags for safety and add ons like fog lamps, electric folding mirror, defogger, alloys etc.
Now a Verna/Vento would start at 9.5-10L. Even if we stretched budget a bit more, we would have ended up getting a base variant of these which I didn't like.

Moreover compact cars are a compromise, a logical one. You gain something and you lose some.

In the end i'm loving Amaze as an powerful engine keeps my adrenaline running and space+efficiency fill up my other requirements.

[ecosport]

Amaze, Dzire and Etios. These three sedans seem to be one of the best selling at the moment. the one thing in common? They look worse that some of those that get featured in the "weird and wacky mods" thread. No way, I'd drive one of them, even if I get one for free.

[blue_pulsar]

Compact sedans might make sense to those who need more space at a lesser price. But its pretty bad when people actually buy a Dzire LDi or VDi instead of a Swift ZDi, simply because of the pseudo-boot. You simply cannot compromise on safety just because you need ~100 litres more boot space or for 'status'.

[raveesh_k]

It’s like choosing between a 1 gig laptop with pre-installed windows 7 or a 2 gig laptop with DOS.

I am sure many would choose the latter and then install an unlicensed version of Win 7.

Given the 'more for less' atitude for most Indians, clubbed with pseudo-status requirements, same things applies when choosing between a premium hatch or a compact sedan, that being the reason behind Dzire's success, most likely to be followed by Amaze.

As someone rightly pointed out, it's sad to see people prefer (boot) space, pseudo-status over standard safety features and other factors like convenience of parking/driving in over-clogged cities like Bangalore etc.

To each his own...

Cheers!

[anand.shankar82]

Personally, I even think that if someone is spending close to 10L on a car, then why not go in for a SUV like a Duster, Ecosport or a Scorpio for that matter ...

By the way, I added Scorpio to this list mainly because I too bought a Scorpio SLE for under 10L due to the same reason ... felt like more car per buck than the Amaze/Dzire but that is just me

[teemus]

As someone already pointed out, the top-end of a lower segment will most certainly have more safety features than the entry lever version of the higher segment. Perhaps, not everyone can stretch the budget by 20%. Quite frankly, the budget is normally stretched enough to get the top-end version of a better car in the lower segment itself.

[virtualdanger]

I absolutely agree here, as compact sedans aesthetically just look wrong. But I understand that in an extremely cost driven market like the Indian one, why compact sedans are so popular.

In one way, perhaps there are signs of progress, as the premium hatch, and compact sedan segments gain popularity vs. baseline hatch offerings.

I guess the mindset of the Indian buyer is predominantly to get what is 'seemingly' the maximum at the best price. And as of now, that sweet spot is the compact sedan segment, when it comes to wanting to own a sedan.

Personally i'd much rather spend my money on a used full-size sedan, even if I didn't have the budget for a brand new one. But that's just me, and I'm sure I'm part of the minority.

[lemedico]

The original swift dzire wasn't too bad to look at and it's proportions were just about right. Then came the sub 4 meter dzire. Oh lord almighty, how desperate was the company to escape the government's tax that they had done what looks like a reverse crash into a concrete wall. That rear quarter is so horrible, so disproportionate and comparable to an ugly pimple that sticks out abnormally on a teenagers face.

I can never look at the full side profile of the dzire without my heart aching in a few seconds. At least honda got it right with the amaze, the brio was originally conceptualised to be future converted into a small sedan and a small crossover and hence the eye pleasing aesthetics.

Off topic, is anybody else left wondering what the car has to offer after watching a maruti suzuki advertisement on the TV? They have the most wasteful ads with no information and crappy catchphrases to go along with them

[dass]

I have a new swift Dzire and I LOVE the way it looks and drives. It's my money and the choice to buy was mine. People who are on a Dzire bashing spree should also understand that they did not buy it for a particular reason and those who brought it, had their own reasons. Everyone has a right to opinion and I thought I will express mine too, as a PROUD owner of a CS. Does it give me pride that I own an almost sedan, heck no. Pride was last of what mattered to me when I brought the car, it was the looks and the comfort it offered. In the same Vein, I hate the Amaze and its older sibling Brio. But Just because I dont like them, does it give me the right to call them names?? I really dont think so, as there are people who would have liked those too.

In short - People buy what they like, want, afford, need. It is their choice to make, not anyone else's.

[sourav9385]

Originally Posted by anand.shankar82

Personally, I even think that if someone is spending close to 10L on a car, then why not go in for a SUV like a Duster, Ecosport or a Scorpio for that matter ...

By the way, I added Scorpio to this list mainly because I too bought a Scorpio SLE for under 10L due to the same reason ... felt like more car per buck than the Amaze/Dzire but that is just me

Personally, not everyone has the need, requirement, desire, ambition, dream, goal, or even an interest in getting an SUV like a Duster, Ecosport or a Scorpio for that matter.

Just because you got a Scorpio, does not mean that you can generalize your thoughts and say that...

"if someone is spending close to 10L on a car, then why not go in for a SUV like a Duster, Ecosport or a Scorpio for that matter ..."

There are folks who are paranoid of their car being dented, crashed into, scratched on, by other cars.
Not everyone has the space to park an SUV like a Duster or an Ecosport or a Scorpio for that matter.
Not everyone wants a car that rolls around like a boat and makes the passengers car-sick.
Not everyone prefers threading a car that is as big as Jupiter through the maddening traffic everyday to work.
Not everyone prefers taking a humongous car to the shopping mall only to find that the parking space is not enough for that car, but could be if it was a hatchback.

People prefer convenience too, you know.
For someone who doesn't need the space and bulk of an SUV, a Compact Sedan or a Hatchback makes the perfect sense. Not everyone has the need to drive an SUV.

Just my $0.02.