[carwatcher]

Hi All,
We have been listening the term 'cross-shopping' on T-BHP since long time. Now with the phenomenal growth of India Automobile Industry in the last two decades or so, it is not wrong to say the customer is spoilt for choice. At the same time, it also results in massive confusion as everyone tries to get the most of his wish list cleared by a single car, be it space, ground clearance, mileage, status, VFM wrt TCO, etc. etc.
We all know that it's not at all common for majority of the public to change cars quickly (<3 years) so buying a car is a very important and special occasion for most of us. As GTO has mentioned n no. of times that to understand the psyche of Indian customer is very tough for manufacturers and massive Cross shopping further worsens the situation. I completely agree with this statement, why? I can tell you from my experience while buying my Linea T-Jet which was the first and probably the last brand new car bought by me as I prefer used cars (but kept in immaculate condition) and bought Linea as an exception.
The contenders for me at that time were Nano (seriously), Jazz, T-Jet and Ertiga.
The honest reasons for the selection of four cars are as follows :
Nano : I liked the cute design and predicted that my wife will use it eventually after improving her driving confidence. Price was not at all a concern.
Jazz : Had a soft corner for the car as it being an under-rated car and after price cut it was a very good proposition.
Ertiga : Most lower priced car which had Three rows of seats and the idea of travelling with your parents and your kids at the same time was too good to ignore.
Linea T-Jet : Need I say anything, I had slim chances of getting used one and there were great deals on offer, which helped me in buying the car quickly.

I was a die hard SUV fan but as already having Fusion in my garage, I didn't consider any SUV and XUV 5OO wasn't available at that time otherwise who knows

So that was my story, cars short-listed were from A, B+, C, LUV segments.

Requesting to share your experiences.

[Lalvaz]

Very true in my case, I usually prefer hatchbacks since I tend to drive alone 95% of the time, so although I might be able to afford the price of a bigger car, I find it over the top for my use. However, now I'm thinking of changing my ride, which is currently a Swift diesel, and I'm contemplating the Duster, Ertiga, S Cross, Ciaz, Vento, Zest, Bolt, Thar and last but not the least the Toyota Altis.

Such a weird line up of cars, that I'm terrified to explain my choices to my friends or even the car salesmen. I mean, they'll think I'm super confused, but all I want is a safe vehicle with good driving dynamics, good looks, fuel efficient, good after sales support and some other fetishes of mine.

Sounds unreasonable? Maybe, but that's what I want, and I wanna try out cars from the list above before I make up my mind.

[S2!!!]

Interesting thread. I'm sure most people would consider cars across segments (which fit their allocated budget) before shortlisting the final few contenders. In my case too, we considered cars from several segments before actually zeroing down on the Grand i10.

So here was the scenario - our sole family car was the Ritz, which gave up 1 fine morning and an immediate replacement was the need of the hour. Budget decided was Rs. 10 lakhs and "value-for-money" was top priority. Cars considered - Renault Duster, Ford EcoSport, Maruti Swift / Ertiga, Hyundai i20 / Grand i10, Fiat Linea T-Jet (pre F/L), Toyota Etios Cross / Liva, Honda Brio / City, VW Polo GT TSi and the Tata Nano! My parents were quite fed up with my indecisiveness and thought that I was out of my mind cause I was just not able to stick to any 1 particular segment nor a price range - I seemed confused but wanted to check out all the possible options that we had. It was much later that I sat and weighed the pros and cons of each, used the theory of deduction () and came to a conclusion!

I'm sure there'll be many who have gone through this.

[Rajeevraj]

Mine was a different kind of cross shopping. My budget was also up and down since my core requirement was an AT + few other general basic requirements.

Quoting relevant portions from my own ownership thread to show the range of segments, manufacturers and budgets I went through.

Requirements:

• Automatic with excellent performance.
• Tiptronic/Paddle Shift: Maybe 90% of driving conditions are taken care of by the regular and sport AT modes, but I felt there will be that 10% time where a manual control would be best suited.
• Efficiency: My usage would not be very high. So a reasonable mileage (say 10-12 in city) would be ok for me.
• Safety features were a must: ABS, Min 2 Airbags etc…
• Light steering especially at parking speeds
• Spacious interiors.
• Reasonably big boot. I was coming from an SX4, so felt I should not feel constrained by the boot space.
• Initial Budget: < 10L

First List- A Segment, B, B+Segment, Compact Sedan segment all covered.

• A-Star: Great 2nd car/only city use car. Poor rear seat space and boot space for my requirements. If I was buying a 2nd car, I think I would have bought this. -Rejected
• Ritz/Dzire: Never really considered due many reasons. But my deal-breaker reason was that AT comes only in the VXi trim which means no ABS and Airbags. –Rejected
• i10/i20: Did not consider the i10 since the bigger i20 was in my budget. Again, no AT in the top end variant, No passenger Airbag in the Sportz Variant. But felt it was worth a 2nd look-Shortlisted
• Brio/Amaze: Brio was rejected due to the boot space and the fact that there are already 2 MT Brio’s in the family. Amaze seemed to tick most of my boxes- Shortlisted
• Micra CVT: The refreshed Micra looked decent enough. General feedback on the CVT was-Great in the city, dull on the highway. Scores low on performance. But in general worth a 2nd look -Shortlisted.
• Polo GT TSI: Was shortlisted by just reading the official review thread. Seemed to meet most of my criteria- Shortlisted

All were dropped due to various reasons.

Second List: C Segment, Compact SUV included

• Ford Ecosport: Was actually considered in my earlier shortlist also. Had to be dropped because of the long waiting period. Would have been my choice if it was available within a reasonable time
• Ford Fiesta: Ford were no longer supplying AT’s when I started looking out. Would not have been considered due to a lack of Paddle/TipTronic option
• Honda City: Unfortunately I started looking out about the time that Honda stopped AT production and all AT stocks were cleared. So no dealer had an AT for test drive nor to buy. Briefly toyed with the idea of a pre-owned City AT. Found quite a few options. But the <2 year old models I was looking for were all priced in such a way that it was not affordable without a loan. And it did not make sense to take a loan for a pre-owned car for a model that was being phased out.
• Scala/Sunny Twins: Never seriously considered. I did not like the looks of these cars and the fact that they were not great highway performers and did not have a manual option made me decide against these.
• Verna: Not considered because of the older tech gear box coupled with the fact that it was quite expensive. Briefly considered the diesel AT. But the scary price of 14.5Lakhs On Road Bangalore (prior to any discounts) made the rejection an easy decision.
• Rapid AT: This was a competent option, dealers were sitting on stock and hence there was a good opportunity to get some major discounts. The reviews of the 6 speed AT were also pretty good. Rejected because of 2 reasons
• The face lifted Rapid had just been announced. So felt it made no sense to buy the pre-facelift which also did not have couple of basic things which I was used to (Eg: Steering Audio Controls)
• With the Vento TSI launched, it seems a matter of time before the 6 Speed AT of the Rapid is also replaced with the TSI+DSG combo.
• Vento TSI: I had read about the Vento TSI launch when I booked the Polo. By the time this analysis was done, the Vento was launched. It seemed to be everything I was looking for. Everything the Polo had plus the rear space and the boot. Became a strong contender.

In the middle of all this, Pre-owned Honda City and Corolla were also considered. Of course the final winner was the Vento TSI and at least to this day, not for a moment have i regretted the decision.

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

Such a weird line up of cars, that I'm terrified to explain my choices to my friends or even the car salesmen. I mean, they'll think I'm super confused, but all I want is a safe vehicle with good driving dynamics, good looks, fuel efficient, good after sales support and some other fetishes of mine.
Sounds unreasonable? Maybe, but that's what I want, and I wanna try out cars from the list above before I make up my mind.

Perfectly understand this mentality. Very similar to what I experienced. And I don't think there is anything wrong in it. Because of the choice, there are a lot of cars that satisfy most of the requirements we have. So no harm in going up and down the range to see the extent to which it satisfies and whether the budget is worth it. Most sales person don't seem to understand this. I recall when I went to Honda, the SA was skeptical when I said I am interested in the Brio, Amaze and the City. He thought I was wasting his time.

[subraiyr]

Absolutely lovely thread. It just brings out the dillema of some of us who vacilate between segments, between used vs new and ofcourse brands. One of the things i have noticed is that this kind of cross shopping is primarily due to a few things

1. A budget to work with
2. A set of specifications that are definitely required in the vehicle
3. A matter of the heart in the end

Our shopping list was crazy. After having owned a Fusion, there was some non negotiable things that we wanted and this was 2 years back story. Our list included - dont laugh

1. Mitsubishi Cedia - A power horse of a vehicle with utmost disregard by the Service team. (rejected due to the car being pulled out of the market before we could lay our hands on it). The canary yellow was the considered option !

2. Ford Ecosport - After having driven the Fusion for 8 years, we were sold on the engineering and the drive. Stiffer drive but steadier drive it was and the car never failed us on our highway trips ever. But by then family expanded and we had 4 bulkers with a child to seat and this was not going to be the one that we wanted

3. VW Polo 1.6 - Again this was another car looked at for the drive but failed due to the previous reasons of space and GC

4. Thar - Dream vehicle. Vetoed since it was quite rugged with not enough of comfort inners. Still would love to have one of these

5. Endevour (used) - Wifey's dream vehicle. But we never did manage to get a deal that was worthy of the age of the vehicle. I see so many people here who have had such good deals on used cars and we wonder why not us. On similar lines the Tuscan was said goodbye too

6. Tata Safari - And thats what we ended up with. Mile cruncher and rugged looks with a fairly steady semi stiff drive and more so oodles of space for the 5 of us. And it checked wifey's box of SUV and my heart for a beast.

[anurag.somani]

Hi Folks,

Need your inputs wrt ecosport TDCi vs city petrol.

Run would be primarily in Mumbai, highways and on tarred roads.

Personally I prefer ecosport for the looks and build quality.
Have another ford (figo) in the family and the experience has been great so far.
For the same money, the ecosport is better kitted too.

My wife is a big fan of City for the honda reliability & classy feel.

Suggestions please!

What's your take?

[lamborghini]

IMO, the biggest reason for cross-shopping is due to the influence of other decision makers.
Recently, we were in the market to look for a replacement for our 2011 Liva D. The basic requirements were:
1. Easy to drive & park in the city
2. Spacious for two 6 footers to sit one behind the other
3. Could handle a fair bit of abuse
4. ABS, Driver's Airbag, and speed activated door locks.
5. Good ride quality

Performance, looks, features, etc. didn't make much of a difference as the usage of the car was confined to the city, as we had other cars for highways, airports, etc.

However, even in a 3 member family - the amount of time spent shortlisting and picking a car took forever!
Contenders ranged from a humble Jazz to the Creta to the Corolla.

Eventually ended up picking up the S-Cross, and some valuable lessons learnt:

1) Get the basic requirements in place, this will help you shortlist cars better.

2) Once the cars are shortlisted basis the basic requirement - start listing out the nice to have attributes & in a way use a weighted average mechanism to further short list the list down to 3-4 vehicles.

3) Go test those 3-4 vehicles and buy the one that you (or the primary driver/user) has most connect with. Here is where influence of parents, children, dog, friends, etc. can wreak havoc.

It helps to identify who you're trying to appease and then pick a vehicle accordingly. In our case, the car was a family vehicle which would see elders using the car frequently as well - so it had to be easy to get in and out off (eliminating the Ecosport and Creta), and between the others (S-Cross, Corolla, Ciaz, Jazz, etc.) - the S-Cross was the only car approved by dad (who's first preference was Corolla but given the usage patterns it didn't make sense to spend the extra amount), and me.

This however was not arrived at without compromise (no AT, stiff low speed ride) but it was the one vehicle that suited everyone.
In the case of the Laura, we picked it up because it appealed to me and as my daily drive - I was the sole decision maker.

Originally Posted by anurag.somani

Suggestions please!

What's your take?

Honestly, the best Ford service centre in Mumbai has recently shut shop, and not sure how the other service centres are.
If your Figo is from Mumbai and you're happy with the service, then get the EcoSport as it will do a fantastic job of tackling the potholed roads.
If not, then the Honda City is a safe buy - though I would urge you'll to look at the Ciaz too or S-Cross.