[souravc]

Having spent more than a couple of weeks with my Vento, I thought it apt to shed my laziness and pen down my experience overall . I think the trigger for this was the exhilarating highway driving experience that I experienced over the past 2 days over a Mumbai-Nashik-Shirdi trip which was 520-530 km of driving. More of that later .
Last year around July we started looking out for a new car, the then existing Swift (Zxi) had done duty for nearly 4 years and we thought that it would be a good time to change our car and retire the Swift to less rigorous duties at my mom's place. We are a family of 3 and we do maximum 1000 km in a month - I drive. When we started looking out we didn't have any specific car in mind.

I did quite a few test drives. I didn't have any petrol-diesel fixation , either would have done as long as the car had the following attributes :-

1. Engine had to be sprightly - If it has to be an upgrade from Swift, it has to be at least as sprightly as the Swift and believe it or not , it ruled out quite a few sedans

2. The car cannot be bland or ugly ( purely dictated by my better half, i had no say in this subjective matter)

3. We had an inclination towards Honda / Toyota due to their sheer build quality since we were tired of rattling noise that we have experienced with Marutis and have seen that happen with Hyundais too though that didn't rule them out given their low cost of ownership. VW was not even there in our initial consideration

4. We capped our budget at the existing OTR of Honda Civic

Cars test driven/considered prior to buying -( given alongside is the specific reason why it was not chosen )

1. Hyundai Verna (petrol)-Sluggish, logically impossible to convert a Swift fan to a Verna.
2. Maruti Sx4 (Petrol)- Wifey didn't like the looks, I had concerns about body rattles though I liked the engine
3. Fiat Linea (Petrol) - TJet was yet to be launched. IMO the car is severely underpowered, I had concerns about Tata servicing Fiat cars so even though wifey went gaga over its looks I refused to budge.
4. Fiat Linea (Diesel) - Felt good but by that time Vento was already out so pretty much outclassed.
5. Toyota Corolla Altis (Petrol)- No brainer , can't go wrong with it but somehow the car did not excite me . We were asking ourselves why we should pay 2 lakhs more for a few more inches of leg space, for a machine which deserves and is likely to have an upgrade shortly
6. Honda Civic - We loved it but had concerns about the ground clearance since the car seemed low ( even though the Honda guys were saying that its GC is higher than ANHC). I have drooled many a times over the speedo dial, practicality set in and ANHC seemed suited more to my needs and saved me money
7. ANHC VMT - Absolutely loved it , had all our votes , dealer was decided , loan approved and we were a few hours from deciding the colour when my friend told me that the Vento is on its way and referred me to Team BHP ! This was sometime in August.

After reading up the stuff i was convinced that it was worth the wait. Sept 6 was the D-Day for the Vento to arrive at the showroom . I wanted to TD it before putting my money on it. On 6th of September I took the TD, was blown away by the torquey engine , wifey liked the looks ( not as much as ANHC though) , both of us loved the ride quality/ suspension ( better than ANHC) so we booked our car the same day .

It must be mentioned that we regretted the decision to opt out of the ANHC for more than 6 months till we finally got our Vento on March 9th.

VW - Buying Experience

Absolutely shoddy - The sales guys were terribly ill informed , didn't have any knowledge whatsoever about the car . This was in stark contrast to our experience with the Honda showrooms . The sales guys there were sharp , a TD was arranged within 10 min and every one of them went beyond the city to arrange for a TD of the Civic too .

Ownership Experience - Wows and Arghs

Wow
1. Stunning torque, its pure bliss whether in city or highway
2. Build quality - The car has a feel of solidity, planted ride which is very reassuring. Love the thud of the door when closed
3. Silky Smooth Gear - Gear shift is a breeze - for me more so since I was making a shift from the notchy gear shift of the Swift
4.Understated Looks - We had also chosen silver which is a bit of a understated colour too
5. Interiors - plastics , wall fabric, seat fabric were the best of the lot
6. Feel Good factors - Loved the little things like the ac vent for rear passengers, front passenger seat lever, MID, etc
7. Diesel - With 6 hikes since deregulation of petrol , diesel looks so much cheaper . Add to it the superior mileage of Vento ( 15 vis-a-vis 11-12 of comparable petrol cars) and my bank account also gets excited . VW's diesel tech is well renowned, proven .
8. Alternate to Honda - ANHC is a class leader but I believe that Honda charges an unfairly large premium for their products a fact which riled me often. NHC didn't have any safety features such as ABS, Air bags till SX4 kicked their backside in the market and offered all of it in a 100 bhp car at a cheaper price, ANHC dropped price by nearly 30K after the stupendous response to Vento are examples of how the end customer is being short changed. I was delighted to have a comparable product whose pricing appears to cock a snook at Honda's.

Argh

1. The hump in the middle of the rear half , the flat one in ANHC is so much better
2. Pathetic dealer experience , raises concerns about ***. I have visited their workshop though which seems good but am not in a position to comment on timelines for servicing , repair , etc and the costs . I have assumed that costs would be 10% higher than even Hondas and took a call whether I can live with it
3. Door Lock - I am unhappy about the door lock not 'locking' from the inside! The german safety logic dished out to justify the same is ridiculous
4. The front cabin light and motion sensor console falls off if the car crosses a hump at anything more than slow speed - something wrong with the clips that hold them I guess . Hate niggles with new machines
5. Bonnet Release Lever - Everytime the bonnet lever has to be released , one has to open the driver's side door which is irritating since anywhere we go now the security checks under the bonnet
6. The central locking does not have 'car finder' functionality. In my Swift , one of the switches in the key could be held down for a few seconds which would make the car flash showing where it is . Specially useful in Mumbai parking scenario.
7. Spare Wheel - Spare wheel is kept face down i.e the valve faces inside which means that its impossible to check the pressure without taking out the entire spare wheel . Are tyres supposed to be airtight for ages !!
8. Music System - Very basic . Sound quality is good - I believe that the speakers are good enough though the base unit is very rudimentary. Rest of my family loves its simplicity, I like its sound but miss the other functionalities like aux, usb port, etc

Overall I have done 1600 kms on the odo in the first 18 days of ownership , around 1200 km in city riding conditions and 400 km on the highway (Mumbai-Nasik (NH), Nasik - Shirdi ( SH)

The car has returned 15kmpl in the city and 17 kmpl in the highway. I should mention that the highway drive was to test out the engine and various parameters, FE was the farthest from my mind. The Mumbai Nasik highway proved to be ideal to test out the car because it had the following:-

1. Good newly tarred roads which can be comparable to the smooth cheeks of Hema Malini
2. It has fairly empty stretches where one can test out acceleration and braking safely
3. Its just not plains , it has hilly roads and most importantly empty hilly roads . This can be used to test out handling of the car during high speed cornering, pull of the engine at higher gears ( low rpm) during inclined climbs

The car is addictive on the highway Some specific observations -

1. Handling - The car remains steady and planted at high speeds. I took it to 160 kmph ( never intended to take it to max, will do it after 5000 km on the odo) and kept it steady there for a few minutes, switched off the music and the ac blower and listened to the engine . It sounded great without any signs of strain- actually you can barely hear it above the tyre noise that filters through the insulations. What I enjoyed hearing was the distinct wind noise at the corner of the windshield , must be the breaking point of the aerodynamic wind flow. I love the suspension , its contributes a lot towards better handling of the car.

2. Straight line acceleration - While going towards Shirdi , had the chance to pit the Vento against a DZire VDi and a Corolla Altis(petrol) . Vento easily out accelerated both of them. These 2 were genuine cases because the drivers were all the while gunning to stay in front . Vento handles superior to the Dzire so it was fairly easy to overtake it on a section of the road which curves gradually ( one can do high speed cornering there) . The Altis was overtaken without any fuss in a straight with an incline. Overall I drool over the acceleration punch that the Vento has , highway overtakings are a breeze. The 2nd / 3rd gear combination provides a sucker punch , accelerate with the second till 3k rpm and then throw in the 3rd gear to pull away.

3. Cornering - The car was very stable on both sweeping corners as well as tight ones in the hills. The journey back from Nasik has a lot of these sweeping high speed corners , the car was planted even at cornering speeds of around 90 kmph . Since the roads were fairly empty ( it was past noon and the sun was blazing ) I did try to do a few perfect cornering where one hits the apex of the curve spot on - the results were very satisfactory. Overall, I felt sure of how the car steers with little body roll

4. Braking - There were 2 incidents which tested the braking quite well . One was when a bike about 25 m ahead swerved suddenly to take a turn and another was when a water tanker was lazily trundling along watering the plants on the divider just ahead of a high speed corner. The ABS is great and there was no twitching of the car due to the sudden braking .

5. Ground Clearance - the GC of the car was severely tested at the State highway section from Nasik to Shirdi. There were quite a few small sections of road which provided experience similar to off roading and not once did the Vento's undercarriage get scraped. In fact scraping of the undercarriage has always been spared except one when my car was carrying 5 adults and 2 kids and we were crossing a monster bump.

6. Note of caution - Vento's front has a tendency to bottom out if the car is going over undulating roads at high speed [ undulating = wavy due to construction defect]

7. From the MID I gathered that 22-23 kmpl on the highway should not be a big deal as long as the car is being driven at steady speeds not exceeding 75-80 kmph. Fast / Insane acceleration brings down the FE drastically to around 5-10 kmpl thus dragging down the overall FE, I achieved around 17 kmpl over the highway trip!

8. Steering - I love light steerings , love the light steering of Vento just as much as I used to love the light steering of the Swift . Maybe its a matter of habit but i feel that the light steering adds to the manouvreability of the car.

I have not done any modification to my car , stock tyre , stock music system remains . Any modification would be considered only after 6 months once the car is bred in and I am satisfied enough about the chances of warranty invoking event happening is negligible. I plan to change the following :-

1. Headlights - I feel that more powerful headlights should be doing duty rather than the present ones, would have it upgraded once I am convinced about the heating situation in new installs
2. Car audio system - Would upgrade to one with aux , usb ports though i do not mind the speakers
3. Tyres - Will change the stock tyres after a year/10000 km. They are handling fairly well right now

Attaching a few pictures of the car and stuff

[camchennai]

Congratulation souravc on your Vento, its raining Vento's on Team-BHP

Your review was very crisp and neatly written, You have given enough attention to every details of the car. Argh bits were identified well and most of it were first time heard in the forum. Kudos souravc

Keep us updated on your ownership experience and ICE upgrade.

[volkman10]

Congratulations of the Vento TDI. A very comprehensive report and guess your wait has finally paid off. Going by the Vento's delivered this month it won't be surprising if Vento beats City when the sales figures of March unfold !

Cheers!

[predatorwheelz]

Congratulations on getting the new car. Looks awesome.

One question. If you bought a Vento Diesel, how come you didn't TD the Verna CRDI?

[souravc]

One more addition to the list of Wows which is related to the first scratch on my car. I had parked my car at the Atria mall in Worli . On the way out , I paid the parking fees and as i was crossing the gate - the attendant ( or is it automatically? I thought I saw him fiddling with swtiches) dropped the car bang on the roof of my vento, since the car was in motion the bar also was dragged along the roof . The gate was effectively an iron bar with no cushioning/padding at all. There was sense of wow when i saw that there was no dent , only the paint has got a bit scrapped - one that I can live with and have to live with. This car's body is built like a tank for sure!

Originally Posted by camchennai

Congratulation souravc on your Vento, its raining Vento's on Team-BHP

Your review was very crisp and neatly written, You have given enough attention to every details of the car. Argh bits were identified well and most of it were first time heard in the forum. Kudos souravc

Keep us updated on your ownership experience and ICE upgrade.

Thanks cam. I will update as and when done

Originally Posted by volkman10

Congratulations of the Vento TDI. A very comprehensive report and guess your wait has finally paid off. Going by the Vento's delivered this month it won't be surprising if Vento beats City when the sales figures of March unfold !

Cheers!

Can't wait volkman and I am sure Vento will beat the City

Originally Posted by predatorwheelz

Congratulations on getting the new car. Looks awesome.

One question. If you bought a Vento Diesel, how come you didn't TD the Verna CRDI?

Thank you very much predator.
If you look at the pattern of my TD , initially I was looking at petrol options only - since i drive around 1000 km every month and the debate about shelling out extra few now and how many years does it work out to recover the initial premium that one pays for diesel , etc. I bought Vento TDI not because I wanted to buy a diesel but only because I found it to be the best engine with the biggest punch that I can afford to buy. Diesel came into the picture only when Vento was in the frame and IMO its a superior machine compared to the Verna CRDI. That apart, having lived with body rattles in various Marutis for years we were keen to avoid a Maruti or a Hyundai if we could find a viable alternative and Vento TDI at ANHC VMT pricing was the perfect for us. In reality my "finalists" were Vento Highline TDI and ANHC VMT out of which I put my money on the Vento

[NoRules]

Many congrats, souravc on your Vento and that was a great report. Hopefully VW ramps up the production and the waiting period improves.

Enjoy your Silver Streak.

[bluevolt]

Hi Saurav,

Congratulations on getting the Silver beauty. If one has to consider a diesel sedan at price of 8-10 Lac, the Vento diesel is the number one choice for any customer.
Please keep on updating the thread with more pictures, ownership experience and service experience.

Happy mile crunching and drive safely

PS – Has anyone on team-bhp bought a petrol vento?

[souravc]

A Quick Addendum on the AC :-
My Vento was baked under the hot noon sun ( temp under the sun would be easily around 42-43 with shade temp around 37-38) for around 3 hours. I have out Llumar sun films on , 50% transparency on the sides and rear while 70% transparency in the front. The car took around 3-4 min to cool down completely. To achieve better results I often roll down the windows with the remote key while walking towards the car , it definitely helps to have some ventilation prior to stepping inside the car and switching on the AC

Originally Posted by NoRules

Many congrats, souravc on your Vento and that was a great report. Hopefully VW ramps up the production and the waiting period improves.

Enjoy your Silver Streak.

Thank you No Rules. I think the waiting period has improved quite a lot for the trendlines , specifically the petrol ones - they have to improve the TDI timelines further. VW has invested massively on production capacities which should show results - as I understand that they had bottle necks with local component tie-ups too. With the demand figures of the last few months , hopefully they would be able to re-distribute capacities across variants.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Hi Saurav,

Congratulations on getting the Silver beauty. If one has to consider a diesel sedan at price of 8-10 Lac, the Vento diesel is the number one choice for any customer.
Please keep on updating the thread with more pictures, ownership experience and service experience.

Happy mile crunching and drive safely

PS – Has anyone on team-bhp bought a petrol vento?

Thanks Bluevolt. Your statement about TDI value proposition is true but yet again its a leap of faith on the after sales service angle . I am hoping that VW is able to replicate the Honda model (thats my benchmark) and I am optimistic due to the following reasons :-
1. VW has massive resources at its disposal, currently its the most profitable auto company in the world in line to become the No.1 as far as production is concerned ( which is a jinxed position though)
2. I am happy that they have chosen to appoint their own dealers rather than a tie-up like Fiat or with multi-dealerships like Sundaram. It allows the company greater control and shows that they are serious. I liked the service centre that I visited , nice equipments - VW oversees it .
3. They have launched 13-14 variants across car categories in India within a couple of years which is massive , shows that they are trying to make up for lost ground
4. VW is huge in China , are they serious about India ? Absolutely! Vento is an emerging market product designed to build up volumes and the pricing shows the intent. I am sure Vento would still have sold quite a lot even if they were to price it at 10 lakhs ex-showroom (instead of 9.49 lakhs) , but still they opted for an aggressive pricing (IMO)

[noopster]

Congrats souravc! Those guys at VW sure made you wait for your baby but I can see that it's been well worth the wait for you!

Originally Posted by souravc

VW - Buying Experience

Absolutely shoddy - The sales guys were terribly ill informed , didn't have any knowledge whatsoever about the car . This was in stark contrast to our experience with the Honda showrooms . The sales guys there were sharp , a TD was arranged within 10 min and every one of them went beyond the city to arrange for a TD of the Civic too .

I have yet to see a Vento buying experience that rates the dealer as anything BUT sub-standard. That they are managing to sell so many of these is a tribute to the car itself. It's truly shameful that a company of VAG's caliber can't handle the buying process effectively.

Wow
(...)
3. Silky Smooth Gear - Gear shift is a breeze - for me more so since I was making a shift from the notchy gear shift of the Swift
4.Understated Looks - We had also chosen silver which is a bit of a understated colour too

My Swift Vxi actually has an excellent short-throw and easy-to-slot shift. Not sure if the diesel has a different set-up. I agree silver makes the Vento look even more understated than it already is- in fact the branding on the rear left (Volkswagen) and right (Vento) are almost completely concealed on a silver Vento.

Argh
(...)
3. Door Lock - I am unhappy about the door lock not 'locking' from the inside! The german safety logic dished out to justify the same is ridiculous
4. The front cabin light and motion sensor console falls off if the car crosses a hump at anything more than slow speed - something wrong with the clips that hold them I guess . Hate niggles with new machines
5. Bonnet Release Lever - Everytime the bonnet lever has to be released , one has to open the driver's side door which is irritating since anywhere we go now the security checks under the bonnet
6. The central locking does not have 'car finder' functionality. In my Swift , one of the switches in the key could be held down for a few seconds which would make the car flash showing where it is . Specially useful in Mumbai parking scenario.

Agree that the door locks (or lack thereof) suck. I don't have a problem with the motion sensor falling off and don't THINK the bonnet opening needs the door to be opened- they asked me to do it once at work and I don't remember opening my door! Also, the central locking unlocks with a loud "paarp-paarp" of the horn- isn't that "finder" enough?

The car has returned 15kmpl in the city and 17 kmpl in the highway. I should mention that the highway drive was to test out the engine and various parameters, FE was the farthest from my mind.
(...)
7. From the MID I gathered that 22-23 kmpl on the highway should not be a big deal as long as the car is being driven at steady speeds not exceeding 75-80 kmph. Fast / Insane acceleration brings down the FE drastically to around 5-10 kmpl thus dragging down the overall FE, I achieved around 17 kmpl over the highway trip!

IMHO you shouldn't be doing 160k's in the running-in but hey what do I know! You will get MUCH better figures if you follow some simple FE optimisation techniques. Don't know if you're following my ownership thread but I just reported 22 kmpl over an 87km expressway stretch in a Vento petrol. And it's an AT. And the AC was on!

Congrats again and do keep posting!

Originally Posted by bluevolt

PS – Has anyone on team-bhp bought a petrol vento?

Yup- yours truly, jesal and a couple more (I think there are 4-5 on TBHP). Most are automatics, though- I remember seeing only 1 Petrol MT on the forums.

[souravc]

Originally Posted by noopster

Congrats souravc! Those guys at VW sure made you wait for your baby but I can see that it's been well worth the wait for you!


Also, the central locking unlocks with a loud "paarp-paarp" of the horn- isn't that "finder" enough?


You will get MUCH better figures if you follow some simple FE optimisation techniques. Don't know if you're following my ownership thread but I just reported 22 kmpl over an 87km expressway stretch in a Vento petrol. And it's an AT. And the AC was on!

Congrats again and do keep posting!

Thanks noopster ! I have been following your thread closely , amazing FE figures you got there , that too for an AT! I did one economy drive in city conditions and I got 19 kmpl over 25 kms on the western express in Mumbai. This was a drive at 10:30 pm so it was light traffic (by Mumbai standards).

BTW, my central locking unlocks silently with just the flash of the lights - the "paarp-paarp" of the horn is only when the alarm goes off , as in when there is a security breach. I guess I will have to get the settings checked whether there is an option to kill the silence , my Swift ZXi (I had the petrol one) had the option

[noopster]

@souravc- I have the exact opposite problem. THat paarp-paarp is so annoying when I get home late or have to leave early in the morning. I feel sorry for the people on the first floor whose window is just under where I park. Cheked this with subodh when we met for the Lavasa drive meet and he had an idea it can be controlled through the VAG.com- perhaps VW took some feedback and decided to make the lock-unlock "quiet"?

[motorhead5]

No and detailed review. Nice pics too, though a little less .

Never noticed this issue with Bonnet release lever as I had never tried it without opening the doors.

One thing that I disagree with you is on the steering front. I find it too light, esp above 80s. Not giving any confidence. Hopefully will get used to it

[souravc]

Originally Posted by motorhead5

No and detailed review. Nice pics too, though a little less .

Never noticed this issue with Bonnet release lever as I had never tried it without opening the doors.

One thing that I disagree with you is on the steering front. I find it too light, esp above 80s. Not giving any confidence. Hopefully will get used to it

Will keep on adding pics as and when I do the long drives - had half a mind of taking pictures of my Vento sailing through under construction roads and going gaga over its off-roading capabilities

On the steering , as I said I prefer light steerings - my earlier car was the Swift so I am pretty much used to light steerings . I haven't had any "moments" at high speed as yet either with my Swift or Vento , nothing even close to it, so I guess I am attuned to driving with a light steering. Its a very personal preference , though with European cars one would expect heavier steering with better feedback - obviously thats been compromised. I sure hope that you get used to it - guess your confidence should be derived from attributes such as the stability of the car, the cornering poise , the lack of body roll , etc rather than only steering feel

[maverick145]

Congrats on the new car. The colour looks superb. A lot of Vento's on TBHP now. One thing is that most of the people are commonly complaining about the paint quality and paint chipping off from places. That is worrisome and Volkswagen definitely needs to improve their sales support in the showrooms. Almost everyone is dissatisfied with the staff at their showrooms.

Originally Posted by souravc

A Quick Addendum on the AC :-
My Vento was baked under the hot noon sun ( temp under the sun would be easily around 42-43 with shade temp around 37-38) for around 3 hours. I have out Llumar sun films on , 50% transparency on the sides and rear while 70% transparency in the front. The car took around 3-4 min to cool down completely. To achieve better results I often roll down the windows with the remote key while walking towards the car , it definitely helps to have some ventilation prior to stepping inside the car and switching on the AC

Can you please let me know the exact model number and price for the sun film that you got on the front (windshield)? Thanks a ton.

[souravc]

Originally Posted by maverick145

Congrats on the new car. The colour looks superb.
One thing is that most of the people are commonly complaining about the paint quality and paint chipping off from places. That is worrisome and Volkswagen definitely needs to improve their sales support in the showrooms. Almost everyone is dissatisfied with the staff at their showrooms.

Can you please let me know the exact model number and price for the sun film that you got on the front (windshield)? Thanks a ton.

Thanks !! I read about the paint problem with one of the Red Ventos on TBHP , I certainly cannot complain about the quality of paint on my car . There was this incident where a boom gate (at a parking lot) fell on my car roof and it barely left a scratch - if the paint was anything but good, the metal would have shown !

I would not be able to give you the windshield cost only - my entire sun film work which used Llumar Platinum series with 50% on sides and back and 70% in the front set me back by Rs 4000