Team-BHP
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I have been doing quite a lot of travelling off lately in a number of cars. Which got me to think which is the most comfortable car to drive in. For long distances. All you have to do is put up a list of cars you have driven for a minimum distance of 200kms at a stretch and rank all of them with the best car starting at the top. Engine is not a main criteria for this thread but the seating position, accessibility to the gear lever and all the other pedals etc here is more important. What I want to know is which is that one car you could drive for hours and hours together, yet not feel the strain.
The Innova. I found it pretty comfortable to drive and to be driven in. Real nice sofa like seats.
1. OHC (400 Kms in a day, and partied all night after that)
2. Esteem VX MPFi (600 kms in a day)
These are the 2 cars that I have driven extensively myself over long distances. There must be others which may be much better, but based on personal experience, the OHC was much better.
May be I am biased but Zen (not Estilo), the Palio are just perfect!
I did long drives in the following cars and in the order
Accent CRDi
Swift VDi
Zen D
My vote goes for Innova, best car to be belted on the highway!! also felt it the most confident and safest car yet driven by me
The only car I drove till now is:
SX4
As I have mentioned in my long term report, I drove it max for 5 hours (220 kms or so) continuously and never felt pain.
My choices would be the following.,
1. Safari - Driven 1500 Kms in 5 days from Bangalore to coastal karnataka, awesome handling with 6 people in the car in some not so great roads, comfortable seating in the back row as well. Its something about driving this monster, you wont get in driving any cars.
2. OHC - smooth and excellent to drive in long stretches, done about done about 400kms in a stretch.
The only 2 cars which i have driven extensively are my 800 and my relatives zen
1)Zen
2)Maruti 800
Tata Safari Dicor.... 100 kph @ ~1700 rpm! Nice suspension, balcony seats, great AC and stability!
Fiat Palio... Low seating, incredible stability, engine is sublime over 80 kph.
Innova Petrol is very comfortable for long drive. Next good one is Fiat Petra/Adventure which is comfortable car as well.
I owned multile cars and travelled, here my feedback best from worst:
1. Innova Petrol spacious and good suspension. Everything is good only drawback I found with Innova Diesel is noisy cabin which creates headache on highway if we drive the car above 80kmph. But I feel this is how it is with most of the Diesel cars. Thats why I prefer Petrol Innova over Diesel one. Another point I would like to make here is vibration is bit more with Innova Petrol If we compare this with NHC/Swift/Getz. I do agree its 2 ltrs engine but still I feel Toyota could have worked on making it less vibrating engine/gear level. However this vibration is not noticeable at all for its engine capacity but still I like quiet cars like Getz/NHC. Innova's well positioned pedals/gear box, suspension and space make people happy inside the cabin. I travelled 400+km more than 8 times in Innova.
2. Petra/Adventure: Although I don't own I liked its ride quality especially on bad typical indian roads. Very nice one for sure. I don't liked Petra's head room which made me against it because I am 6ft tall. I travelled around 100+km in these vehicles only couple of times.
3. Getz very quiet engine and nice soft ride travelled only once.
4. Swift : Big car feeling from inside, on good roads nice ride and on bad roads ride is noicy and but no bumpy ride like Santro. But we feel like something went wrong with car (Swift) because of lot of noice.
5. Matiz: Travelled once for 400km. very comfortable 4 people on board.
6. Santro: Nice ride on good road. Hit the bad road you need to slow down to 10kmph else lot of bumby ride.
7. Omni If driven slowly and carefully speeds like 50kmph I found this is the vehicle we can travel but still creates lot of tiredness. In bad road lot of bumpy ride. My head touched top multiple ocassions when driver jumped speed braker on highway especially in NH4 in 2003 where GC was under construction :)
Regards,
Ravi.
Have driven the Alto , Baleno and Lancer for some real good distances.
Longest stretch done was 750 kms in a day at a stretch in the Baleno. Have done 600 odd kms in the Alto and Lancer in a day.
My vote goes for the Lancer, I love the seating in comparo to the Baleno/Alto. Well thats(seating) what comfort is all about.
1. Palio 1.2 - sublime, as long as you are not in the middle seat at the back. I had the privilege of driving my friend's Palio in turns from Pune to a couple of beaches in the Konkan area. Amazing in the driver's seat, very comfortable in the passenger's seats (refer caveat above). I feel sad, sad, sad that Fiat service is not upto the mark, else by now I would have been moving around in a 1.6 sport :mad:
2. Santro - took turns driving my friend's Santro from Pune to Goa - I got to drive on most of the good stretches of the GQ. For a "city" car, I felt that it held it's own on the highway - great torque low down in the rev range enabling you to pull away without too many downshifts, in case traffic hazards force you to slow down. None of us felt too tired given the length of the drive.
3. Zen (carb version) - this is the car that I own, and while it is an excellent city runabout, the lack of power becomes a bit obvious on highways, when you have to downshift for almost every overtaking maneuver, and I often have to switch the A/C off to enable a smooth overtake. This, coupled with the amount of engine noise that makes it into the cabin, makes for rather stressful driving for distances > 200km. This is the main reason I am looking for a new car with a bit more power and a bit less noise.
Thanks,
Amit.
Tough call.
1. Matiz (maybe I'm sentimental !!)
1. Civic
2. Mitsubushi Lancer
3. Getz
4. Fiat Uno (Diesel)
5. Maruti 800
The Matiz probably comes first because it was a manual and it was so simple to drive inspite of that. Driven a lot of long distances on it nonstop without any strain.
Civic is an automatic so the strain of clutch is not there. So that's why
in comparison with a manual it comes slightly below.
However if I were to drive for hours and hours now I'll choose the Civic because its easier to drive/accelerate/overtake and other overall comfort.
Cars we've had,and those that I liked using for long distance trips:
1) The Opel astra
2) Hyundai Accent.
3) Hyundai Verna.
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