[Touringlawyer]

Hello Team-BHPians,

I am really excited about being a member of this family and would like to begin this journey by thanking all the folks here at Team-BHP, and especially the people who came together initially to conceive of the idea of Team-BHP. I have learnt just so much from this forum over the past 7-8 years.

I will try and keep my introduction short. I am a Delhi based lawyer, with knowledge of automobiles limited to the Fiat Grande Punto Diesel, which I have owned since July 2009. On top of my list of activities that I enjoy most, is travelling to the forests and mountains, and I prefer to drive down myself. With that thought in mind and the intention of doing many thousands of kilometres on Indian roads all over India, am planning to graduate to an AWD SUV, and Renault Duster AWD is my choice for that, which I shall be booking shortly.

Needless to add, the decision to buy the Fiat Punto Diesel back in 2009, and the Renault Duster AWD now, were both made after going through the reviews and comments on this forum, which are so honest and detailed.

I am hoping that I will be able to contribute to the vast knowledge base of this forum with my own experiences with these 2 vehicles.

Thank you for accepting me as part of your family, and wishing all of us many thousands of kilometres of pleasurable and safe driving.

[Vikram Arya]

Welcome to the forum!

You have a nice garage coming up. If doing long distance is the intent then an SUV is probably a better bet as compared to a car especially on Indian roads because of the space, high seating, greater ground clearance & safety (though this is purely notional).

Having driven neither I can safely say both Fiat Grande Punto & Renault Duster seem to be nice cars; one for city diving and the other one for the highway.

Stay safe & happy motoring.…

[Aditya]

Welcome to Team-BHP.

All of us keep learning something or the other from the forum. Nice to know that Team-BHP has been of help when it came to choosing your car.

The Duster AWD is a good car. It's ride and handling combination is truly amazing. The engine is very nice as well. However, I would urge you to check out the interiors of the car before finalising it.

See you on the forum.

[Touringlawyer]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Welcome to Team-BHP.

All of us keep learning something or the other from the forum. Nice to know that Team-BHP has been of help when it came to choosing your car.

The Duster AWD is a good car. It's ride and handling combination is truly amazing. The engine is very nice as well. However, I would urge you to check out the interiors of the car before finalising it.

See you on the forum.

Thank you Aditya for the welcome and advise on Duster.

Before finalising the Duster, I have considered the Safari Storme Varicor 400nm (approx. 18 Lakhs on the road in Delhi) & Mahindra XUV AWD W10 (about 20 Lakhs on the road in Delhi). But the problem I am facing is that due to the Supreme Court order banning vehicles with engines above 2litres, none of the above are available for purchase in Delhi.

So as I see, given that I need and want an Diesel AWD SUV below 20 Lakhs, my options are quite limited, considering the fact that I am based in Delhi. Duster as of now has no competition in the AWD space, in the NCR, being the only AWD SUV with engine below 2 litres. I checked with the dealer in Delhi and also on the Mahindra website, Mahindra though has launched the 1.9 litre engine for XUV, but not on the AWD models (W8 and W10).

Also, mine is a small family of just 2 members, so really I don't need the Storme or XUV in terms of space, plus they are costlier than Duster as well.

To conclude, I agree with you that Duster's interiors do not match the price at which the AWD model sells i.e., almost 16 Lakhs on the road in Delhi. But then, the customer really has no choice in Delhi.

Please do advise if you think I have missed out on any other SUV that I should consider. Will be grateful to you for that.

[shady_lawyer]

"Ek aur vakil..bhai waah" Welcome to the team.

Go through the forum rules and since you are from Delhi and can relate to what follows next; treat every post as if it were a filing before a particularly idiosyncratic judge of our High Court. Hope to see more of you around in Court and on the forums.

[Eddy]

Welcome, and see you around on the forum

Do take a look here ;p

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...ultations.html

[Samba]

Hi, welcome on-board. Wish you an awesome stay over here. You drive a Fiat Punto, love to drive in mountains and want to upgrade to a Duster AWD! This pretty much sums the Bhpian spirit with in you!

Originally Posted by Touringlawyer

Needless to add, the decision to buy the Fiat Punto Diesel back in 2009, and the Renault Duster AWD now, were both made after going through the reviews and comments on this forum, which are so honest and detailed.

As you are accustomed with the awesome handling and the HPS of your Punto, i feel Duster AWD is the best upgrade for you. Its decently fast on highways, supremely comfortable on bad roads, the steering feel is great, arguably one of the best handling vehicle among suv's, the AWD is quite effective too. The only flip side can be the not so gorgeous interiors but again the positives outshines the negatives! All the best for your new purchase.