[skidpri]

Hi everyone,

I was officially approved as a Team-BHP member in mid-July, but due to work commitments, etc, have been unable to introduce myself till now. Apologies for the same.

I'm Skanda, an electronics engineer born, brought up, studied in, and now working in the utterly-awesome-to-live-but-terrible-to-drive-in city of Bangalore. I've been lurking around T-BHP for about a year now, and am glad to finally be a member.

I haven't been much of a driver, so I'm yet to fall completely in love with four wheels. To be honest, at the moment, I feel more kinship with two-wheeler riders (no offense to anyone in the forum since this is only a personal choice). I'd like nothing better than take a good old Enfield bullet - or a Yezdi Road King - on a nice long roadtrip. I find that the feet-on-road, wind-in-hair, intuitive-riding, more-direct-feedback from the road feel that one gets from a two-wheeler is difficult for a car to match.

However, safety reasons require that I limit myself to four wheels instead of two. And if the road isnt good, the same directness of experience from a two-wheeler makes us hate riding. So I feel its a balance. Of course, I'm sure that there are cars that can make one fall in love with driving - and i'm sure i'll find one soon. I'm an absolute top gear nutter, and used to swear by their opinions of cars till i discovered TBHP.

I have been hunting for a car for almost a year now, and TBHP has been an absolute absolute absolute boon. After finding almost every other review from official magazines utterly useless and indecisive (the number of weasel words used by these mags is irritating to say the least), I was overjoyed to find TBHP reviews - complete with photos of every tiny bit that matters. And the ownership reviews were absolutely mindblowing. I went through almost all of them, to the point where I was advising my much older colleagues about the finer technical aspects of the cars.

After much dilly-dallying, research and back and forth analysis where I considered almost every single car from the Nano (almost booked one) to the Diesel Sunny caaaaar, I will soon be getting an Aveo UVA. Thats a story for another thread perhaps. Apart from that, my experience of driving would be occasional drives in the normal complement of indian gaddis - omni, santro, swift, city, nano, indica, vista, etc.

I hope to be able to be a constructive member of the forum and learn more about the cars that everyone here loves. :-)

Cheers and happy driving,
Skanda

[deehunk]

Welcome to Team bhp, congrats on your decision to buy UVA. Enjoy miles and miles of safe and happy driving.

[mjothi]

Originally Posted by skidpri

After much dilly-dallying, research and back and forth analysis where I considered almost every single car from the Nano (almost booked one) to the Diesel Sunny caaaaar, I will soon be getting an Aveo UVA. Thats a story for another thread perhaps.

Namaskara...

That seriously needs a separate thread. You are bold enough to decide the UVA in this scenario (Read Fuel price, new sail launch, bad resale etc.)

Eventhough it is a practical car, GM almost killed it without the wrong engine.

[esteem_lover]

Namaskara Guru,

Welcome to Team BHP.

Originally Posted by skidpri

I will soon be getting an Aveo UVA. Thats a story for another thread perhaps.

Apart from all that you said about not knowing anything about cars and all that blah blah, how did you decide on the UVA ? and not the swift or an i10 (safe choices) ? I know, coming from a Roadking, you needed something different. Congrats on the UVA, but just beware of Chevy's cost of maintenance of the UVA, their later models seem to have lesser maintenance.

[skidpri]

Thank you everyone.

As for why the UVA - simple answer - second hand (sorry I forgot to mention this in the original post).

This being the first car that i'm buying (family car not counting), I needed a good city car at a low price point. And since it would also be needed for family use, very good space. Our earlier car was a maruti omni 8 seater, a car that a family of 4 could positively picnic in. So you could say we're used to having a lot of space. Unfortunately, few small cars today cut it.

Then there was a general fear of buying a second-hand gaadi, even though that was a strong choice. Primarily because of me not being a car buying expert, and generally not being too trusting of second hand dealers we didnt know. Given the finalized budget of MAXIMUM 4 lacs (read - strict maximum - ideally less than 3 lacs), that didnt really put too many first hand cars in the choice list (I literally didnt fit into the K10, so that was out). I was almost ready to finalize on the Nano, but somehow just felt that we needed a "full car". Luckily, my neighbour was selling his aveo uva. Having known him well, knowing the car well, and also having had positive reviews from a close friend who owns a UVA, I decided to buy it, since the reason for sale was genuine and the car was good.

As for the costs, etc, I agree with the possible high maintenance and low mileage. But overall lifetime costs (considering I plan on upgrading it in 2-3 yrs anyway) would still be lower than other costs for any other first hand car except a Nano, and that was struck off already, leaving this as the only choice. Would love advice on this though... I know .

P.S... I never owned a Roadking (I wish I did though - i'd never need a car), but I learned motorcycle riding on one :-).