[motorworks]

While I did feel initially that Hyundai should have made dual airbags and ABS as standard, I had a quick look at the competition and they are far worse! The Celerio and the Tiago are actually worse in this front! You have to literally get the range topping variants for any safety features! The Tiago has some option pack in a lower variant but then it does not get ABS in the same variant!

So what Hyundai has done is par for the course, in terms of prices and features of the new Santro. Yes, they could have taken the lead by offering dual airbags as standard, but otherwise the car seems better specced than Celerio and the Tiago in most areas.

[cp171185]

Yesterday, went to Lakshmi Hyundai, Madinaguda (Hyderabad) to check out the new Santro. Test drive car was not available. So posting some of my observations & related images after the first look of the car. Was in real hurry & took some casual snaps in my mobile. Excuse me for the quality of the images:-

1) Front is carrying the shape of Hyundai’s signature hexagonal grill. Clear resemblance to Grand i10.


2) Swept back headlamp, the bonnet gets crease lines just like the Grand i10.


3) Front wheel arches gets full cladding inside, whereas partial at the rear.





4) Hyundai kept its original tall boy design of Santro, no alloy even on the top end model, flap type door handle across the range.


5) Rear gets two parking sensors (not 4) & a camera


6) Either use the car key or a lever inside the cabin to open the boot/hatch. Oh! Taking about keys, Santro does not get engine start stop option.


7) Roof gets prominent ribs.


8) Front & rear doors have got very decent & wide opening. So getting into the car should not be any issue.



9) Missing essential! No height adjustment for the front seats


10) All the doors can accommodate decent size bottle & couple of nick-knacks


11) You cannot fold the ORVM from the inside, though you can adjust it electronically. Front Headlamp gets height adjustment functioning. Could not find the option to shut those beautiful looking corner AC vents!


12) Steering wheel is carried over from Grand i10. Chrome bordering of Hyundai logo is missing though. It gets multiple functions including voice command!


13) Ugly looking screws are kept open in many places inside the cabin, did not expect from Hyundai!


14) Rear AC vents! And It gets chrome border, which looks nice & not looking overdone. Notice the Swatch Bharat tiny can beside the hand break, Santro gets it too!


15) My favorite! Cabin light is placed almost at the center. Helps to illuminate the cabin evenly


16) No Protruding type rear bumper! It is almost flat. Get ready for a bodywork even for a slightest of the touches at the rear from other vehicles.


17) Boot is decently sized. There is a bit of loading lip though.


18) Inside of the hatch gets beautiful cladding unlike other cars of even segment above! Nice job Hyundai.


19) Radio Antenna is placed at the front


20) Price list as on 24.10.2018. Zoom in the image, yes, the price list is having “Handling Charges” which is not to be charged to the customer.

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by motorworks

I had a quick look at the competition and they are far worse! The Celerio and the Tiago are actually worse in this front!.

Not really correct regarding the Celerio. Please check the Option Pack offered by Maruti on the Celerio - it adds the Co passenger Airbag and ABS.

You can get the O variant across the range and it is truly an Option Pack. You can for LXI O, VXI O or the ZXI O. And you could also go for VXI O AMT or the ZXI O AMT.

Hyundai and Tata need to learn from Maruti. And of course if you talk about Nexa every car sold there comes with Dual Airbags, ABS with EBD and ISOFIX mounts - they call it the NEXA Safety Shield.

[ManavJain]

Hyundai has done a decent job with the new santro. No offence to maruti owners but all their cars lack quality. They start rattling very early and the body seems not very solid. I own a micra and its run more than 2 lac kms now in 6 yrs with no rattle issues at all and the quality is very good as well. In india its a habit that we dont give new entrants a chance. I am sure if celerio, ignis,baleno and brezza were not maruti cars, they would have been total flops. Ford, hyundai, VW make much better and solid cars. This is coming from a maruti owner in the past.

[RM Motorsports]

2018 Santro review - ACI

https://youtu.be/I-N_egg7L0U

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

Not really correct regarding the Celerio. Please check the Option Pack offered by Maruti on the Celerio - it adds the Co passenger Airbag and ABS.



You can get the O variant across the range and it is truly an Option Pack. You can for LXI O, VXI O or the ZXI O. And you could also go for VXI O AMT or the ZXI O AMT.



Hyundai and Tata need to learn from Maruti. And of course if you talk about Nexa every car sold there comes with Dual Airbags, ABS with EBD and ISOFIX mounts - they call it the NEXA Safety Shield.

Im aware of this so called option pack by Maruti, in fact this was widely discussed in another thread. The option pack seems to be only on paper and these options pack variants do not seem to be readily available and there were reports that dealers in fact do not accept bookings for these variants.

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by motorworks

Im aware of this so called option pack by Maruti, in fact this was widely discussed in another thread. The option pack seems to be only on paper and these options pack variants do not seem to be readily available and there were reports that dealers in fact do not accept bookings for these variants.

That is not the way you worded it earlier I agree to your point that it is not readily available but when I was in the market for a small car in 2017, I did visit a lot of Maruti showrooms and most of them agreed to provide the O variant in whatever trim level I chose. The only point was that it would take 4-6 weeks for a Zxi (O) and slightly lesser for a VXI (O). I decided on the 4 cylinder K12M engine and went ahead with the Ignis AMT though...

We do have our own BHPian audioholic who owns one of these O variants and has chronicled his ownership report as well: URL (My Maruti Celerio ZXi(O) AMT - A rare variant)
Based on his report, this variant was introduced in 2016 itself, so it has been more than 2 years that Maruti started offering these options and that is commendable. If there is no demand for it - that is a mindset/education problem of our country - let us not blame the manufacturer for it - they will produce more volumes of whatever sells definitely.

There are of course other issues for which Maruti needs to be condemned for - such as the AMT Issues with their 3 cylinder cars - but not the aspect related to making Airbags/ABS available as options.

[Storm2.0]

It has been more than a week since all the details of car were revealed. There are some points regarding this car which has put me off.

1. Lack of steering height adjustment. If this feature is present in my Eon sportz trim, why did Hyundai think of skipping on Santro?

2. Space saver/smaller spare wheel- This car may set a dangerous trend among other budget car manufacturers of today. Initially space saver tyres where seen in luxury cars/ cars with big oem alloy wheels or lack of space in boot due to design constraints.This trend has been slowly percolating down to cars of lower segment too but with the motive of cost-cutting.
Santro gets a 155/R13 tyre as spare whereas the actual tyre size is 165/R13. Mind you all the trims are equipped with only steel rims . Again comparing this with the Eon, Eon gets a full sized stepney.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by Storm2.0

It has been more than a week since all the details of car were revealed. There are some points regarding this car which has put me off.

Lack of steering height adjustment, lack of Driver seat height adjustment and the lack of window buttons on the door hand-rest itself were enough for me to tick off this car from my list. As such i was not happy about the styling and the compromise on the safety (single airbag on sports variant)

[dark.knight]

Got a look, just for nostalgia sake.. because it was the first car I drove. Now my observations may not be accurate since it was a short period of inspection but here goes :

Good :

1) Well built for the segment, I mean it impresses, both in terms of plastic finish and rigidity and outer body rigidity. The steering is the same as in Elite i20, and won't look odd in a D-Segment sedan.

2) Its a modern take on the old Santro, while I'd consider a touchscreen and Android auto less important over practical and safety features, the modern aspiring Indian buyer craves for tech and it has been given.. very well integrated as usual. For reference even the 40 lakh Audi Q3 I was driving around for awhile didn't have Android auto, just their proprietary MMI.

3) Ride quality is impressive, though I'd urge people to stretch to Grand i10 if possible, but in comparison to old Santro the ride is very very mature and noise isolation also has been worked upon. The engine doesn't have issues with speeds upto 50kmph.. smooth and quick acceleration.

Bad :

1) Practical kit isn't close to the old Santro's.. for example the XS spec Santro (top end) came with flexible rear reading-lamps, numerous storage cubbies, luxurious soft folding spring-handles etc. The door-cards on the new Santro are almost useless, they don't even have all 4 window controls which the old Santro had (with fabric inserts that too).

2) Styling is somewhat quirky, if Santro gen-1 was a gentleman's car, this one is a teenager's/millennial's car. Of course nowhere as odd as the Ignis (in my view). That rear window slope is an eyesore though. Also rear seats feel low, adjustable neck-restraints should've been a must a-la 1st-gen i10.

3) It is a melange of the economy-grade interiors of Eon, frontal styling of i10, and dashboard of Santro.. they took the bad points of all the 3 for recipe mixing, if they had taken the plus points of all the 3 then it'd been far better.

Personally, I feel its the leader of the segment and can be a nice beater car and one where you can happily drive around with parents. Given the pricing though, the Grand i10 is a better bet any day. This is a disappointment as far as styling goes and most seem to share that sentiment.

[vsrivatsa]

I had prepared a Automatic Car Comparison Chart during my search for automatic cars in 2017. I have updated the same with the Santro Sportz AMT variant below:


Automatic Small Cars - Click on Image to View FullSize


Note: I could not locate the Turning Radius of the 2018 Santro anywhere - could someone provide that detail ?


The 160 mm Ground Clearance also seems like a negative to me, given the history of Hyundai cars to scrape the bottom.

[S2!!!]

Originally Posted by RM Motorsports

2018 Santro review - ACI

https://Youtu.be/I-N_egg7L0U

Couldn't help but notice, the wheel caps on the left side of the car and right side are placed in opposite directions, and it's not just these two cars but several other media cars as well.

I understand there's just one design to keep a check on costs but

[DCEite]

Old wine in a new bottle is what all i can say.

What's with the old eRLX engine of the decade old Santro making its way into this car ? Its not even the Kappa series, i believe, which came with variable valve timing.

The styling is not exciting in any way, and there is nothing striking about this car in today's age which excites me. The Santro of our time was ahead of its time , with a fantastic engine, great driveability, a practical tall boy design which made it to be a perfect city car.

Sadly today, things have moved on. Reminds me of Maruti launching a car called "Zen" Estilo. You get the drift.

[RM Motorsports]

2018 Hyundai First Drive Review - CnB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4vZ21PezaE

[vigvr]

I saw a poll online and I couldn't help but ponder. Sharing a screen grab of the final prices here for Santro and Grandi10. With the level of discounts on the Grand i10 AND with ABS + airbags standard, amazing feature packaging with the rev cam, touch screen with android auto and apple carplay.

It throws a very important question to me - Is the Santro really worth the buck? Would it make sense to just go for the humble ol' Grand i10.