I have had the Nexon XZA+ for little more than a month now. During this period he car has completed 1500 kms and its first long drive to Kodaikanal. I don't expect to find time to come up with an ownership thread. Hence, I have put together my thoughts and experience in this post and especially how it compares to my previous ride, Linea MJD.
Many of my friends were surprised that I sold my beautiful Linea only to buy a Nexon - a wannabe SUV. Even I consider this to be a downgrade in many ways but decided its the right choice at this stage of my life where I expected to be driving lot lesser and completely different priorities. I was willing to trade the fun-factor for a practical vehicle.
So, has Nexon lived up to my expectation? In one line, it certainly has, so far. Anyway, here it goes. To help break the monotony of my writing style, I have added some pictures I took during the last trip. Hope they do the job.
The drive:
When I sold my Linea two months back, it had clocked 1,65,000 kilometers and was old and tired. So, perhaps it's not a fair comparison, but with fully loaded and AC on, the Nexon pulls lot better than the Linea. Not only is the Nexon adequately powered, the AMT always finds the right gear to ensure the car pulls well. The ride quality, as reported and expected, is one of the two weaknesses I find with the Nexon. The ride is bumpy in roads where the Linea will just dismiss the imperfections. Having said that, the Nexon is very well planted on the road even at high speed. At hundred KMPH on a good quality road, you hardly notice the speed which is wonderfully aided by the well-insulated cabin. It's wonderful to have a quiet car, indeed.
Cool.
I already mentioned in my other posts about the AMT and gear shifting. For my driving style, I find the gear shifts to be good enough. The modes do their job very well and for all my drive to work, I use city mode and for the highway drive I used the Economy and occasionally Sports. For the drive on the hills, I was playing around with all the modes, including manual. I was expecting the economy mode to not work for the steep climbs, but no such issue encountered. This is one area where I found the manual mode to be somewhat helpful. On occasions, depending on how deep the climb is, the AMT would maintain the gear at either on 1st or 2nd longer than I feel necessary. On such occasions, I found this mode to be useful where I could up-shift it sooner when I wanted. But even then, I ended up down-shifting occasionally, which basically means that unless you enjoy using this mode, any of the automatic modes should just suffice.
Check.
The most surprising fact is how well the Nexon handles. I could pretty much do everything I did with my Linea on the Kodaikanal's winding roads and the Nexon never complained.
Awesome.
Ground clearance:
This, one of the main reasons I went for the Nexon, is just too good to ignore. In my Linea, whenever I was at bad patches or especially the huge Bangalore speed breakers, I would pause, fumble and deliberate on which way to tackle it. Now with the Nexon, whatever is thrown at me, I just take it head on. It's incredible that such a relatively small car offers such a high clearance.
Awesome.
Steering and seating comfort:
Steering is the other weakness of the Nexon. I knew the EPS is not as much fun and that Nexon's was not as calibrated as let's say the Ford Fiesta. But it's not the feedback or the choppy nature of the steering I am talking about. The steering gets way too heavy at high speed. In the Linea, at any speed over 80, the steering hardly required any input from the driver that I held it between my thumb and index finger. Now, out of habit I do the same with Nexon and my hand started hurting. It simply requires lot of effort just to hold it on winding roads. And it's not cool to having to hold the wheel firmly with two hands, is it?
Not cool.
Talking of steering wheels, I also feel it's tad smaller and lacks adequate grip. Looks like I am going to wrap it in leather.
The other beef I have with the steering wheel is the position of it. Within its adjustment range, I am not finding a position that lets me see the instrument cluster completely and at the same time rest my right hand. I like to rest my right hand on the door-pad when cruising on the highway, but if I adjust the wheel for that, the display almost disappears behind the wheel.
Not cool.
The left arm-rest seems just about right for me. No complaints there.
Check.
The seat is just about okay and slightly better than the Linea, which isn't really a compliment. The seat could have been deeper and firmer. Under-thigh support is lacking as well. All in all, I am still finding out the best seating position. What also doesn't help is the visibility for the driver is very restricted.
Jury is still out on this one.
MID and other options:
The mode selector may do its job, but is inconveniently positioned. How is one supposed to change the mode or reset the trip meter while driving? In the Linea, the mode selector was integrated with the wiper stalk. Besides, I don't understand why the outer temperature and ODO reading is not always shown.
Not cool.
Every time I start the car, the car doesn't remember that I was playing audio via Bluetooth last. Not cool. But it's all worth it when you eventually listen to the music with very high quality sound effect.
Awesome.
Fuel consumption:
I calculated the fuel consumption over a distance of 400 kilometers of which 180 kilometers on hilly terrains and got figure of 12.5 kmpl. This is not much different from the MID, which showed 13.3. The trip had three adult, a 10 year old and a dachshund and with AC mostly on, either cooling or warming. On another trip with just four lane driving, the MID was showing around 16 kmpl. Not bad at all, in my opinion.
Check.
Other bits:- I don't particularly like the alloy wheel design. But I do appreciate that this design suits this car better than the multi-spoke alloy that my Linea had. Besides, it's much easier to clean the wheels
- Talking about cleaning, the honeycomb pattern in the front grill is going to be difficult to keep clean.
- I don't like the fact that the smart band doesn't double up as fitness band. As of now, my ten year old uses it occasionally when picking up something from the car while in the garage.
- The tires require 30psi and even one point lesser seem to affect the ride of the car. Don't recall encountering this with the Linea.
- Android Auto navigation requires the mobile to be connected via USB. May be there's a way, but I am yet to figure that out.
- The rear wiper is a bit of as joke. Covers very little area.
And finally, some pictures: