[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by trrk

Even with just the vapours of petrol in the tank, I was surprised at the driveabilty of it.

haha OK!

Round No. 2 - DRIVEABILITY

We now rank the acceleration of the cars in the 3rd and 4th gear. Good 30 - 80 kmph acceleration time makes pottering around in the city in the 3rd gear a lot easier. Similarly, a good 40 - 100 kmph time in the 4th gear makes overtaking on crowded highways an easy affair with minimum gear changes. This ranking basically measures the "torqueyness" of the engine.

30 - 80 KMPH TIME IN SECS IN 3RD GEAR:

40 - 100 KMPH TIME IN SECS IN 4TH GEAR:

Assigning equal weightage to performance in 3rd & 4th gear, the ranking of cars with the best driveability looks like this -

Comments:

- The Fiat Linea 1.3 diesel takes on its nearest competition - with a sledgehammer in hand!

- In the small car driveability ranking, diesel cars ruled the roost - blame it poor pulling power of small 1.2 litre petrol engines in higher gears. But among sedans, petrols do pretty well for themselves in the driveability challenge thanks to bigger engines.

- Maruti SX4 is Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to Performance & Driveability.

The ranking of sedans under Rs. 12 Lacs that offer the best combination of outright performance & driveability -





Comments:

- If you are wondering what the Ford Ikon diesel is doing in the 6th place, remember that it is running on Fiesta's 1.4 TDCi engine.

- Fiat's MJD made the Swift Diesel a rock star, but the same engine without a power upgrade (like in Linea/Manza) dulls its overall performance a bit.

- Fiesta 1.6 petrol Vs Honda City contest should get interesting in the next few rounds.

[raghu230506]

Wow,

Great thread Smartcat, one stop for all comparisons. Great work. Keep rolling.

[mpksuhas]

The SX4 ranking and performance has come as a shocker to me.

[arishi1]

Smartcat great job. Rated 5 Star. One request is to add Optra Diesel also in this comparison as you already have the petrol here.

Request to Moderators: Please make this and the comparison thread for Hatchbacks as sticky thread. It will help all future readers.

[alpha1]

Great effort, however I have one point to make.

The scores you are attributing are not realistic.

Say there are 4 cars: A,B,C,D

0-60 for A: 4 sec, B: 5 sec, C: 6 sec, D: 6 sec
0-100 for A: 9 sec, B: 12 sec, C: 10sec, D: 11sec

Your total score comes to:
A= 3+4 = 7
B= 2+1 = 3
C= 1+3 = 4
D= 1+2 = 3

Now The difference between A in score is much more than what you will experience in real life (A and B in first case, A & C in second).

This what is happening in your case also.
Better would be to actually sum up the times in 0-60 and 0-100 and 30-80 and 40-100.
This would lead to time being the differentiator - and not the rankings in the individual test.

[SkyWalker]

rated 5 stars! Excellent work Smartcat. Keep 'em coming.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

Under 12 lakhs? If you increase it to 13 lakhs then Optra Magnum D comes into the picture and you can put it on top of the charts for 0-60, 0-100, quarter mile.

Originally Posted by arishi1

Smartcat great job. Rated 5 Star. One request is to add Optra Diesel also in this comparison as you already have the petrol here.

OK, will bring Optra diesel into the equation from tomorrow. It costs slightly over Rs. 12 lacs on road Mumbai, but I'm pretty sure Chevrolet is offering hefty discounts on the car.

Originally Posted by raghu230506

Wow, Great thread Smartcat, one stop for all comparisons. Great work. Keep rolling.

Originally Posted by SkyWalker

rated 5 stars! Excellent work Smartcat. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks men!

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

The SX4 ranking and performance has come as a shocker to me.

Ranking and "performance" isn't that bad - its only the in-gear acceleration that is a shocker. I guess Maruti is good at making good small capacity petrol engines - unlike Honda that makes brilliant small & large capacity engines.

Originally Posted by alpha1

Great effort, however I have one point to make.
The scores you are attributing are not realistic. Now the difference between A in score is much more than what you will experience in real life (A and B in first case, A & C in second).

It's a flaw in the ranking methodology I admit, but it should cancel itself out over different parameters. For example: consider a car's on road price. The price difference of say, Rs. 1 Lac between car A & car B is much more in real life than what the rankings might show.

Originally Posted by smartcat

Fiat's MJD made the Swift Diesel a rock star, but the same engine without a power upgrade (like in Linea/Manza) dulls its overall performance a bit.

By the way, I'm talking about the DZire diesel here.

[Gilead]

smartcat, any plans of bringing handling into the picture? Most of these cars were tested by ACI at the Chennai race track. Their lap times can be used as a proxy for handling. See if you can dig up that issue. Overdrive did something similar with Gaurav Gill driving. Not sure if most of these cars were involved there though. The ACI test was done by NK. See if you can dig up those ACI and OD issues.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Ranking and "performance" isn't that bad - its only the in-gear acceleration that is a shocker. I guess Maruti is good at making good small capacity petrol engines - unlike Honda that makes brilliant small & large capacity engines.

Hmm, well agree with you on that. Read in some other thread about an insider news of SX4 diesel currently undergoing testing and may hit market Jan next year. Was mentioning about 1.6L engine (Fiat?). Hope that engine once its out will do justice for the car.

[indivic]

Originally Posted by smartcat

What's Autobild India?

Another magazine like ACI,OD, BSM. I guess it does not have too many fans of it on this forum. They more or less worship all German marques, so everything that is Teutonic is perfekt, ja.

AutoBild

btw, cant keep myself of your threads man. Great work

[gaurav_chopra04]

Excellent Thread Smartcat! Good Work done. I have actually emailed this thread to a few people. Thanks

From the owner of the most underrated car in India.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by Gilead

smartcat, any plans of bringing handling into the picture? Most of these cars were tested by ACI at the Chennai race track. Their lap times can be used as a proxy for handling.

Unfortunately, we have some octogenarians like Ikon petrol, Marina and Lancer diesel in our ranking. So even if we do manage to get our hands on the lap times, these cars wouldn't have been tested. Handling is something a buyer should check it out himself during a test-drive.

Originally Posted by indivic

Another magazine like ACI,OD, BSM. I guess it does not have too many fans of it on this forum. They more or less worship all German marques, so everything that is Teutonic is perfekt, ja.

AutoBild

Haven't seen it in Bangalore. But there is a new glossy Indigo XL sized magazine called ZIGWHEELS in the market. Content seems to be somewhat unimpressive.

Originally Posted by gaurav_chopra04

From the owner of the most underrated car in India.

Cedia huh? OK, I'm a bit guilty too - I didn't know the engine was that good.

[devarshi84]

Originally Posted by gaurav_chopra04

From the owner of the most underrated car in India.

It's surprising how the fact emits both love and hate for HM.

@Smartcat: Accept my compliments for your hardwork. That's a nice effort on your side. But I differ from your opinion. I have seen figures which differentiate in a few seconds between two publications or websites.

THe figures are best noted down on a self test of all the cars under consideration. I dont understand that this should be helpful as a reckoner but the figures dont change relatively and that poses a problem.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by devarshi84

But I differ from your opinion. I have seen figures which differentiate in a few seconds between two publications or websites. THe figures are best noted down on a self test of all the cars under consideration.

Self-testing of all the cars and note down the figures? I don't think we possess the equipment, cars, talent, consistency nor the time to do it. The assumption of the whole exercise is - these magazine guys are pros, and that they do this every month for a living. But yes, if you don't trust the data inputs taken from the magazines, then this thread won't make any sense to you.

Regarding two different magazines having different figures for the same car, note that I'm using 0 - 60, 0 - 100, 30 - 80 & 40 - 100 numbers from ACI only. Not that I trust ACI more than others, but no other magazine gives in-gear acceleration figures!

CHEVROLET OPTRA 2.0 DIESEL

Chevrolet Optra 2.0 diesel makes a wild card entry into the contest - because of widespread popular demand (um, 2 suggestions actually). And it gets into the ring thumping its chest!

Now there are 26 cars in the sedan test - so with our simple ranking system, each car can earn a maximum of 26 points in a "Round".

0 - 60 KMPH TIME IN SECS:

0 - 100 KMPH TIME IN SECS:

OUTRIGHT PERFORMANCE PTS & RANKINGS:

30 - 80 KMPH IN 3RD GEAR:

40 - 100 KMPH IN 4TH GEAR:

DRIVEABILITY PTS & RANKING:

TOTAL RANKING - PERFORMANCE & DRIVEABILITY:

[akaush]

Wow...
I was in fact waiting for the sedan's and SUV data just like the small cars you did sometimes back. (will wait for some more time for SUV data)

All this data collected by you should ideally be the first thread of the respective segment, so that everyone gets a general idea when he wants to buy a car. Great job, me and my wife are waiting for your next post.

We are now also thinking about Optra, and ANHC suddenly doesnt seem to be "THE BEST CAR FOR US".
Thanks dude !!