[beemer5499]

I have two distinct cars.

1) Primary - 2025 XEV 9E as my daily car which I really love driving and gets a lot of attention and is a great car overall but it’s electric so may not be suitable for long road trips

2) Secondary - 2023 Audi A4 as a secondary car which can be my weekend car or for occasions. Mahindra doesn’t have the luxury tag despite 9E being a great car and very close to luxury cars. A4 is also a great car for when I miss the sound of engines but acceleration and response is not as good as 9E but the driving confidence, all around visibility and chassis is better than 9E

Bonus (Tertiary) - 2024 BMW 330Li which is used by my brother in Bangalore presently

It's a distinct primary & secondary car situation, both oozing with character. Electric Vs Petrol, RWD Vs FWD, Indian vs German, SUV Vs Sedan, Good interiors Vs Luxury Interiors, Kinda Toughie Vs Softie.

The only thing common between both the cars is that they’re black.

Strangely enough, after 3 back to back car upgrades for 3 cars, we do not have any beater car. XEV 9E is going to be our beater

Currently, the garage has XEV 9E, BMW 330Li and Audi A4 (Hyundai Creta 1.6, Ford Endeavour 3.2 and Honda City 3rd gen are for sale right now)

I wish we could get a Thar as a beater

[athray9]

Back home in Chennai, Dad has the Skoda Kodiaq 2.0 TSI and mom has the BMW 320d G20.

Both Dad and Mom use their respective cars as their daily.

For city drives, Kodiaq is used more due to the stacked up parking

For long trips with driver, they use the Kodiaq.

For self driven long trips they use the 320d.

Things change when I make a trip to Chennai

I use the 320d for most of my drives be it city or long when I am alone. It's just so much fun on highways especially in Tamil Nadu where the highways are really good. I always do a trip to Trichy and Karur whenever I travel to Chennai and the roads are very smooth and compliment the 3-series's handling and power and what blows my mind is that I am guaranteed to at least 15 km/l if I drive enthusiastically and I've achieved 21km/l when I drove on normally.

When we travel as a family to Trichy/Karur, we use the Skoda Kodiaq due to the comfortable rear seats, insulation, amazing ride comfort from DCC and the smooth engine. You can go at decent speeds while passengers are sleeping in the car and listen to some good music in those Canton audio system which would literally mask the distance so well. I used to own an X3 30i and X3 M40i back in US. The Kodiaq is comparable in many ways to the X3.

But yeah at the end, it's finally 2 cars serving two different purposes. You can't call anything primary here since both have their own purpose at home.

[Axe77]

My approach would generally to have a beater car and a preferred car for self although the purpose for each can differ. The drivers for a beater might generally be guided by which one is more comfortable to be chauffeur driven in rather than anything else.

Over the years, I have had either two cars at home or three if I count my mum’s but her car has usually not been predictably available since she often spends time away in Pune for 5-7 days a month since the last several years.

Cars that have overlapped at home and how they’ve been used / considered:

1. Dec 2023 - now | GLC and 3GT: The 3GT (bought Oct 2015) is the volume runner / beater since its got a better back seat than the GLC (bought Dec 2023) and it’s also diesel and cheaper to run. Now I also send it frequently to Pune when my mum goes with my driver instead of her taking her 2018 Grand i10 for these trips. Grand i10 is the super beater when it’s in the house when we’re going to small / cramped places.

2. June 2022 - Dec 2023 | 3GT and Jeep Meridian: The Meridian (bought June 2022) even though brand new was the ultimate beater since it had a better back seat than the 3GT and was generally more hardy. Not only was it the chauffeur driven beater but even I enjoyed driving it very often, both within the city as well as on many highway drives. For highway runs I’d be equally game to take the 3GT or the Jeep - the latter would prevail if there was questionable terrain involved in the trip.

3. June 2018 - June 2022 | Grand i10 and 3GT: My 3GT was our sole car for all practical purposes (since the G i10 belonged to mum) while the Hyundai (bought June 2018, by selling her Honda City) was the beater for us when it was available or when we needed a small car to go to specific places. But otherwise, most of our needs were met by the 3GT, whether self driven or chauffeur driven.

4. Oct 2015 - 2017 / 2018 | 3GT and Honda Civic + City: Our garage then comprised of my 2009 Honda Civic A/T, which got sold in 2017 and mum’s Honda City A/T which got flipped for the Grand i10 A/T in 2018. The 3GT was our first German luxury car and used as such specially in the first year as such with the Civic / City being the beaters which the drivers used more heavily. Very quickly though the 3GT became the primary car given to driver and self driven. The charm of the Civic was that it had hands down the best back seat, when looking for a comfortable chauffeur driven drive. The catch preventing it from becoming a thorough beater was that it was far more expensive to run (FE wise) than the diesel 3GT.

5. 2012 - 2015 | Nissan Sunny and Honda Civic / City: We bought the Nissan Sunny in 2012 selling my wife’s i20 with the sole objective of it being a comfortable chauffeur driven workhorse with my 2009 Civic being the comfortable luxury car. It was our first diesel and also a manual car so the Civic was made the self drive car (or chauffeur driven for back seat luxury) while the Sunny was the comfortable and economical to run, runabout. The City remained mostly with my mum during this time although we simply rotated the Sunny for whoever needed it with the driver.