| Re: Toyota Innova Crysta : Official Review
Finally booked the Innova 2.8 GX AT Silver 8 seater variant last week at Topsel Toyota of Kolkata after months of research on team bhp and then bugging several bhpians and did not spare even the dealer.
How things started
It all started few months back when based on my email to Toyota regarding queries around petrol and diesel and G and E variants that they forwarded the queries to Mr Kapil Goyal of Topsel Toyota, absolute gentleman I must say handled all my queries gracefully over months . My default choice was the petrol variant but came to understand it's so rare that a petrol TD vehicle is not available. I was surprised to find out that neither Toyota nor the dealer is interested to sell petrol models or they need petrol models to be blind buys. Indirectly Toyota is encouraging potential petrol buyers to buy Diesel. This is also evident from the fact that petrol has lesser options as in VX only Diesel has 8 seater version.
I wasn't ready to buy a car without a TD and there were several queries unanswered regarding performance of the petrol in difficult road conditions. So decided to go ahead with evaluating Diesel options.
The Garrage Test
Around early June Mr Kapil assigned Abhirup from his team to work for my asks, once again a very knowledgeable and absolute professional gentleman. When he asked me what is holding up the booking, I told him about the inadequate existing Garrage size to house an Innova so I am working on an alternate Garrage which had not yet materialized. Surprisingly he insisted for a Garrage test per my convenient time something I never heard before in previous car purchases.
Nevertheless on one Saturday he turned up with a TD Innova exactly at the time specified by him, very punctual I must say. But the 2nd surprise of the day was, the Innova did fit in my garage, yes may be with a few back and forth but the result was positive and I was amazed and became a tad more confident to proceed on the route of purchase. They promptly left after the test recording the feedback. In the mean time Mr Kapil did invite me for the Glanza launch but due to my office schedule I had to take a rain check.
Follow up and Test Drive
But the test drive was still pending, so after a week we fixed up another day for the same. I was upfront in telling Abhirup that I am not booking the car even if the test drive turns positive and he was okay and insisted for the focus to be on test drive.
Nevertheless, me and my wife, showed up at Topsel Toyota near Ruby on last Thursday on our way to office inspite of the weekday rush. Our preferred days of visit were on weekends considering office rush on weekdays. They insisted that both the manual and automatic variantsbare available together easily during the weekdays, they even offered to drop my wife after the test drive to her office if required as it was a different route altogether. We showed up at the showroom around 930 am and Abhirup was on time waiting for us and after a brief chat inside decided to go for the test drive. By the way, we eyed the Glanza next to where we sat. More on this to come later.
The first TD vehicle was the 2.4 VX Manual variant, I boarded the driver seat with Abhirup beside me and my wife took the captain seat at the back. I adjusted the driver seat height manually to my desired advantage and with his help powered up the car. Below are the observations:-
1. First observation was the gear lever vibration, while its left idle the vibrations visible are minimal but when I feel the gear knob it's like driving a truck, although I have never driven a truck before, sorry if anyone feels I am exaggerating. Of course Abhirup said it's driven by many people so the experience in a first hand vehicle is much better.
2. Second observation is regarding the steering, although some have complained that it's heavy but having driven a hydraulic steering in Hyundai Getz for 11+ years it felt way lighter to me, yes may not be as easy to turn as the electric power steering of the i10 but I had no reason to hate it. Probably heavy steering is more confidence inducing at higher speeds.
3. We set forward on a stretch of road nearby with an initial good length for 1/1.5 KM. The car pulled effortlessly in eco mode. The third gear is actually having a wide range and Abhirup did educate me on a few occasions to not to downshift to second gear and I had to agree with him looking at the performance.
4. At a very bumpy stretch with not just potholes but rather craters he made me deliberately put the car over those undulations and I was very impressed to see the 16 inch wheels soaking all that was thrown at it with ease that I can never imagine on my Getz with 14 inch tyres. Hilarious as it may seem on occasions he was literally raising his voice to compel me into putting the car over these holes and when that went in vain he took charge in turning the steering from the driver side inorder to not let me avoid / dodge the bumps or the craters. Surprisingly, the car did not disappoint even once and came out victorious and never did it touch the bottom so the ground clearance is good indeed.
5. Probably I should have mentioned this earlier, driving the car does not induce the feeling of a pulling a bigger car, it's effortless to drive in city.
6. Although some have complained about long clutch travel in MT variant, per my observation the same was evident only once during the push button start, unless I fully press the clutch it will not start the ignition. But subsequent press during gear changes does not require pressing down all the way and is not at all inconvenient. Even in my Hyundai Getz, giving the ignition requires full clutch but thereafter subsequent gear changes are done on lighter clutch.
7. On our return he suddenly engaged the power mode and I felt in 3rd gear as if the car is flying forward, even my wife on the rear seat felt as if we were plunging ahead, it was such a burst of insane power delivery and we noted it's felt more on the 3rd than on 4th. Although Abhirup kept encouraging to push the pedal more I wasn't ready but I gathered a good amount of understanding of the power delivery. We reached a max of 85 KMPH speed within a short length of road and the NVH although good you do feel slight noise of engine from inside though, may be it's more prominent at lower speeds since wind and tyre noise is less in that band.
We came back to the showroom and then boarded the 2.8 Z AT, the power adjustable driver seat was a cool and convenient thing to adjust my position. We started the test drive in the same route as before
The observations are
1. The gear lever obviously is dead still and easier to hold. Taking the lever from P to D and releasing the brake took us forward. If there are small obstacles the Crawl may not be sufficient enough at times and the additional boost of gas pedal is desired, I must mention that I did not encounter a speed breaker to validate this better.
2. In eco mode after having driven the manual back to back I felt the automatic was less engaging to drive at least in slower speeds but it was overall so much easier to handle with two less things ( gear and clutch) to worry about and perfect for city drives.
3. The 17 inch wheels made its difference felt with the 16inchers right away, the ride was bumpy with every jerk arising out of the road undulations were surely felt inside. But of course the jerks were lesser than what I felt in my Getz with 14 inchers. So there is obviously improvement but if someone compares back to back with the 16 inchers the difference will clearly declare the 16 inchers as winner.
4. I asked Abhirup to engage the power mode on one occasion but only to realise that in D mode the power option makes the gas pedal very sensitive and abrupt touching in low speeds make the car jerky. Also in D mode I failed to feel the turbo punch like I could in 3rd gear of the 2.4 MT. This is because the car was shifting to 4th gear from 3rd due to my sedate driving style with a light touch on the accelerator. I was afraid again to jam the pedal to the floor as the road was not clear enough.
5. We reversed and turned around the the car and realised that even reversing is a breeze in the automatic.
6. Steering felt the same as the manual one. But in both the variants with automatic climate control as soon as the power mode was turned on the climate control stepped up the blower speed to an extent that made it noisy, yes of course Aircon was doing better eventually, but this is just an observation.
We returned to the showroom and decided to take some time to zero on manual vs automatic. They encouraged for the manual though and it was readily in stock but respected our decision.
Once again for the test drive
On the following Saturday I called up Toyota and requested for another test drive of the automatic version. They promptly agreed and as planned we showed up in the afternoon at the showroom. Took out the Diesel ZX AT once again and this time when we approached an empty road I asked him to shift to the sports mode with the gear set at 3. There was not any noticeable difference in normal driving but then when the power mode was engaged the insane pull we were missing in the automatic variant so far was finally seen and my wife on the back seat could feel it too. This brought smiles to our faces finally having accomplished what we came for and we eventually returned back to the showroom. Abhirup offered me to take the car to the parking in the basement and I did one last check, on the incline of the ramp I released the brake in the D mode, the car indeed rolls down a bit faster but isn't it supposed to hold 1st gear with more engine braking when there is no foot on the accelerator? Or should I need to engage S mode for that?
A word on the space and comfort inside
Another observation, we did not pay much attention to the back seats before. So myself, wife and Abhirup sat in the 2nd row of a bench seater model to check the shoulder room. It was adequate but I think it's similar in my age old Hyundai Getz too but the gain is in terms of the comfort, more legroom, the 2nd row AC and the recline option. Then a test of the 3rd row, me and wife gave it a try and while ingress is fine for us, it may not be suitable for elders. The 3rd row is good enough for 2 adults but legroom is of course a compromise although the recline and the adjustable headrests do aid quite a bit. But the Aircon is really good in the 3rd row for the extra air vents there and both of us agreed to that. Finally a word about the boot, on paper it's 300 litres and on my Getz it's 290 litres yet the feel of the boot in Getz is bigger. Is it just me?
Other options considered
Maruti Ertiga :- I really liked it and almost at one point had decided to lock this option. Had good space inside, good looks and loaded with features except the cruise control but had a decent petrol engine too with a 4 speed automatic. But the concern on build quality and safety after seeing some accident pictures of the cars based on heartect platform I decided to drop it. New Ertiga is longer wider and taller than the previous generation Ertiga but is lighter. Come on Maruti, engineering cannot give all of it.
Mahindra Marrazzo:- Probably more space on 2nd and 3rd row that Innova and driver seat has lumbar support too, but sadly no automatic and not sure how effortless will it pull on full load. Also long term reliability report is missing and a smaller boot
Tata Hexa:- massive road presence and excellent build quality and good comfort inside but boot space is pathetic and a large part of the 400 NM of torque is spent on pulling the bulky body, this is evident in inferior highway performance as compared to Innova. Also heard rumours that Hexa may be superceded by harrier h7x variant in near future.
Mahindra XUV500:- Good interiors and spacious and feature loaded too and track record is good too but very low on boot space which I needed to be descent if not biggest, otherwise W11 AT AWD version does appeal.
I missed the following models due to timings/unavailability in Indian market:- Kia Carnival, Toyota Rush, Tata harrier h7x, Hyundai Creta 7 seater.
The decision
We had made up our mind that the automatic is the correct choice and decided to go for the same. Since the 2.8 AT offers only the 8 seater in the GX Variant and we had reservations to have a bench seat in the middle for our purposes we zeroed in on the 2.8 GX AT. I did have the budget for the 2.4 VX MT which is also offered in 8 seater variant and it's interior really hit the sweet spot but because I wanted to have nothing other than an automatic this time it was ruled out. I would miss the ambient light, steering cover in leather and wood, heat rejection glasses, tray tables and automatic climate control of the VX variant. Although it's difficult to gauge that in a 20 lakh car there is manual knobs for the Aircon. Toyota should have offered the 2.8 ZX with a bench seat option and it would have sold more than 2.8 GX AT in my opinion.
The colour
On the colour aspect, of course the Garnet Red was the appealing choice but considering the maintenance it needs to be like that on an ongoing basis made us consider other options. Highly advertised ceramic coating options for paint protection cost organs literally, so insanely priced these services are. Next choices were Grey and Bronze but in the showroom when we saw the silver variant next to us we realised that we have missed out considering a great option. We were told that scratches are less easily spotted on the silver. But yes having deep Colors on our existing cars we know how easily scratches and dirt are visible even if they are visually more appealing colours. After some thoughts we zeroed in on the silver colour.
The Booking
My initial plan was for booking the car in July but on discussion with Abhirup I came to understand that there may be a upcoming inflation induced price hike with no feature addition by Toyota and the price I have to pay eventually depends on the same during the delivery time and not on what it is during the time of booking. So hoping that booking now increases chance of a delivery within July helps thereby preserving the current pricing we decide decided to book.
Have decided to go for the Toyota protect insurance for first 3 years which is quoted at 1.61 lakhs with 3 years own damage as against 85k for first year alone. But contemplating if I should go for lifetime tax too since diesel vehicles will be on a unpredictable path after 5 years.
Gratitude
I want to extend thanks to following fellow bhpians for their tips and support over pm and phone that helped shaping the decision:-
carrot_eater, jav, turbanator, IndiaSierra
You guys rock.
Glanza
I will post some thoughts regarding the Glanza in the seperate Glanza discussion thread. We were offered a TD for the Glanza too for feedbacks, but because of time constraints could not make it happen.
That is all for now, have to decide on the accesories, will post again soon. | 
10th June 2019, 00:49
(1)
Thanks
