[AtheK]

Test drove the Astor today, it was a very good experience at the showroom. Since this was start of week, the showroom had very few people, this gave us a good amount of time to spend with the car. I already knew the features of the car so told SA that I will reach out if I need any help and in the mean time if she can arrange a test drive.

Spent some quality time in the car with my son and a friend, car was silver colored.

1. The front grill looks awesome!! The Interiors though are the star of the package, the red does not look gaudy, and looks nice, but it will outgrow very quickly, and better to pick the standard colors IMO, the fit and finish as said before is Sublime. This car punches above it's weight.
2. The front is well designed with all buttons feeling premium, and nice touch of having a cut out near ICE for co passenger to hold on to.
3. The touch screen is very responsive and very good quality, the menus area are laid out perfectly, and the sound quality is very good.
4. The front though felt a little lesser in space compared to Vento, which in itself feels cramped in front of other cars in the segment.
5. I stepped into the showroom after spending sometime with XUV 700, the sun roof on this felt much better, maybe because we sit closer to the sunroof, compared to XUV.
6. Sunroof inner cover is translucent and let's light in, would have preferred if it was opaque so we can filter out the light from outside completely like normal roof.
7. The Astor robot is cute, but is sluggish and was not able to respond many times, need some more work for sure.
8. Son loved the car a lot and picked it over the XUV 700 (He is 7 years old, so I guess it was just the robot and Sunroof that had him stumped)
9. Test drive was good and I drove it for around 10-12 Kms, engine starts off nicely, with hardly any vibrations felt.
10. The view from driving seat is very good, and I hardly had to adjust the driving position. Engine is peppy and gear shifts are good, the car builds up speed nicely and outside noise is well insulated. I touched 80+ a couple of times and it was effortless, this will be an easy and good car to drive in the city. The ADAS options were switched on, but then I really don't know how well or lack of there operation in such a short ride. I did not try to pull any stunts too as it was peak Bangalore traffic.
11. The point listed in point 6 again came into play and since it was sunny, I could feel the heat filter in, would have been good to have an opaque blind.
12. AC worked well and kept the cabin cool, even with the point 11 in play. The AC vents look very premium.
13. The Speedometer is well laid out and looks awesome, clear and crisp display to boot.
14. Suspension seems to be tuned on the softer side, would be interesting to see how this behaves on high speed on the Highway.
15. The steering modes are nice to have but do not make much of a difference at least on low speeds, the steering feels nice to hold and weighs up well on default settings itself. It felt really good after being extremely disappointed by XUV 700 steering.
16. I did not sit in the back seat, but seeing we are a family of three, it should be OK, as the main occupant, the little one, did not complain of anything.
17. The boot space is decent, and parcel tray is given by default.
18. Wireless Android Auto and Car play is missing, Auto Dimming IVRM is missing, Ventilated Seats is Missing. Competition gets all this, the latter two are available with hector and should have been included with Astor, maybe they wanted to differentiate Astor and Hector. I am guessing we will soon get all these features in Astor and Hector will get ADAS.

All in all I was left pretty impressed with the car, but I again echo sentiments above, except for some new features my Vento is still doing really well, and it will be tough to consider this an upgrade. This though felt better to me then XUV 700, if I discount the extra pair of two seats and obviously the sheer size of XUV, which actually works against it in Bangalore.

We then stepped into hector and it feels so much premium in itself, my Son now wants me to buy the hector (Seven year old example in play), I will TD Hector soon and see how it fares, for now let's see how MG prices the Astor, Keep it below Creta and Seltos by 50 thousand rupees and this car will sell real well.

Also a special shout out to the experience at MG showroom, it felt great the SA was well informed and let us have our time with the car. She was also happy to run and fetch prices for Hector when she knew we stepped in primarily for Astor. Kudos to such customer service and more power to MG, they should focus on this aspect which is a huge positive, then spend energy on trying to make people believe that they are brit.

[McLaren Rulez]

Is there any info on when the variant wise feature list for the Astor will become available?

[CarGuy_DM]

Will be test driving the Astor this Saturday. The weird thing is even though Creta sells gazillion cars every month, due to Covid related restrictions and not going out that often, I had never sat in the new gen Creta till today.

Test drove the new Creta 1.4 DCT today. Just a check mark before finalising the Astor most definitely.

Sorry to all the owners out there, but I absolutely hated the interiors of the new gen Creta. They are not 20 lakh car worthy. The dashboard was extremely boring and the red AC vents are the worst design choice in quite a while. This all made me appreciate the interiors of my Tata Safari 2021 more than I used to give them credit for.

I hope I love the ride & all of the Astor now. Since the Creta has crashed out of contention.

[neoonwheels]

Originally Posted by CarGuy_DM

Will be test driving the Astor this Saturday. The weird thing is even though Creta sells gazillion cars every month, due to Covid related restrictions and not going out that often, I had never sat in the new gen Creta till today.

Test drove the new Creta 1.4 DCT today. Just a check mark before finalising the Astor most definitely.

Sorry to all the owners out there, but I absolutely hated the interiors of the new gen Creta. They are not 20 lakh car worthy. The dashboard was extremely boring and the red AC vents are the worst design choice in quite a while. This all made me appreciate the interiors of my Tata Safari 2021 more than I used to give them credit for.

I hope I love the ride & all of the Astor now. Since the Creta has crashed out of contention.

I see Astor fulfilling all your expectations that you had set for Creta. The interior quality is going to a benchmark if its priced in the Creta segment. The drive even though might not be as peppy as 1.5dsg, will keep majority of people happy. The NVH levels are very good and you hear the engine only when it crosses 4K rpm. It looks like a good offering but if its VFM or not only pricing would tell.

[shibulijack]

Does anyone know the dates of pricing announcement?

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by shibulijack

Does anyone know the dates of pricing announcement?

The SA said it might get spilled to next week.

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by shibulijack

Does anyone know the dates of pricing announcement?

The pricing will be announced on 7th Oct and immediately there will be an online flash sales (for first lot of 3k cars). This booking is expected to start at around 12 noon. (That is what the MG sales person told us)

[silverbyte]

Originally Posted by ant_vas

Spent the whole of sunday test driving Kiger, Astor and visiting Tata, Volkswagen and Mahindra Showrooms.

Has asked the sales advisor of Renault to get Kiger home for test drive. Took a good drive on variety of roads with steep inclines, no roads, flat roads and the car performed beautifully. The pick and acceleration was wonderful and the suspension setup is amazing.


Next we visited the MG showroom and it was crowded. As soon as we entered, we were welcomes and sales advisor assigned. We checkout the display car and the sales advisor took our license details and arranged for a TD of the 1.3L version with in 5 mins. The car didn't have any vibrations, pickup was linear, NVH levels were pretty well controlled. The 360 camera was wonderful. in the split screen if you select the a side of the display, the main camera will switch to that camera. the AI assistant was slow in responding may be due to mask we were wearing. The drive quality was impressive. Didn't bother to checkout the ADAS feature as didn't have that much time.

You're one of the few people who has test driven both Kiger vs Taigun vs Astor extensively.
Can you talk about your views on the Kiger on how it stands versus a segment higher car like the Astor ? I have heard that the inside space is not bad (for a sub 4m car) and the 1 L turbo CVT is quite good. What are your opinions on the whole package...especially when you compare it to a premium offering like the Astor ?

[ant_vas]

Originally Posted by silverbyte

You're one of the few people who has test driven both Kiger vs Taigun vs Astor extensively.
Can you talk about your views on the Kiger on how it stands versus a segment higher car like the Astor ? I have heard that the inside space is not bad (for a sub 4m car) and the 1 L turbo CVT is quite good. What are your opinions on the whole package...especially when you compare it to a premium offering like the Astor ?

I haven't done the test drive of Taigun yet. But it's build quality and interiors appears solid.

Kiger while it sits a Segment lower than Astor is certainly a good spacious car. while the thigh support for back seats is also less in kiger but the leg and head room is good. drive modes, color MID do make it nice. The interiors don't appear as premium as Astor though but has Lots of storage space. Didn't checkout the infotainment system in both cars so really can't comment on that. Being lighter and smaller than Astor, Kiger should return better milega. The 1L turbo has a good pickup and drive modes do help. CVT is smooth and doesn't have any jerky behavior. Both cars had wonderful suspension and I loved sitting in both the cars.

The reason I test drove both cars is that I am not particular about a Segment. just was looking for a automatic with decent power and space. While Kiger misses out on features like cruise control, 360 camera, TPMS (available on magnite) the drive modes do make up for it.

If money is not a concern then Astor it is. If on Budget Kiger is a very compelling option.

[silverbyte]

Originally Posted by ant_vas

I haven't done the test drive of Taigun yet. But it's build quality and interiors appears solid.

Kiger while it sits a Segment lower than Astor is certainly a good spacious car. while the thigh support for back seats is also less in kiger but the leg and head room is good. drive modes, color MID do make it nice. The interiors don't appear as premium as Astor though but has Lots of storage space. Didn't checkout the infotainment system in both cars so really can't comment on that. Being lighter and smaller than Astor, Kiger should return better milega. The 1L turbo has a good pickup and drive modes do help. CVT is smooth and doesn't have any jerky behavior. Both cars had wonderful suspension and I loved sitting in both the cars.

The reason I test drove both cars is that I am not particular about a Segment. just was looking for a automatic with decent power and space. While Kiger misses out on features like cruise control, 360 camera, TPMS (available on magnite) the drive modes do make up for it.

If money is not a concern then Astor it is. If on Budget Kiger is a very compelling option.

very interesting - thanks for the reply. I'm quite impressed that Renault built a car that actually stands on its own versus the next tier cars. I think Kiger is back in the running for me. I have been seriously considering the Astor and Taigun for now...but i generally prefer smaller cars because of the neighborhood where i live

[aeyjay]

MG showroom was quite buzzing with all interest in Astor, had to wait to check out the car. Plus test drives were full and pre-booked for weekend. Based on the interaction with the SA:

1. Since Astor is built on ZS platform, Astor will not be NCAP rated given ZS is already rated five star (understandable)
2. Also SA, ZS build quality is robust as it is CKD units imported from China compared to Astor which is made locally (so not sure if that will any way change five star rating). He was highlighting to see door weight and thickness of ZS and Astor. Will try to check this again when go for a test drive if any difference
3. Hector NCAP rating is yet to be revealed I believe, will be good indicator if any difference in build quality and materials between CKD and local production (https://www.team-bhp.com/news/mg-hec...-revealed-soon)
4. I was largely looking for 1.3 turbo, he mentioned could be 3 trims for turbo with ADAS and 6 airbags in top model. Although, safety equipment being standard across variants, airbag count will vary. Will need to wait and see how true as the following link mentions variants for the 1.5L NA, nothing much mentioned about 1.3L (https://www.financialexpress.com/aut...tures/2338954/)
   
   

[Arun1]

Any idea how big of speaker we can fit here, will it take in a standard 6.5" or can it only accommodate something smaller?

[das_ren_auto]

Is there any drive review available for N.A. engine. I could not find any. Does this mean that N.A. version won't be available at launch?

[CircleOfLife]

Originally Posted by das_ren_auto

Is there any drive review available for N.A. engine. I could not find any. Does this mean that N.A. version won't be available at launch?

This won't be the case that 1.5 will not be available at launch.

1.5 NA is already available at few showrooms.

It did seem that these were available during media drive but were they offered for test drive to any specific folks is yet to be ascertained.

[911CarerraS]

Test drove the Astor today and it was a very pleasant experience!

I had driven the City CVT yesterday and I felt that it was good but nothing exceptional.
Today I got my hands on the Astor and I was totally satisfied!
The 1.3 Engine is not as punchy as the Kushaq's 1.5 motor but it's better than the 1.0 Tsi unit. There is a little lag lower down but overall the engine is punchy and supremely refined. The milleage I got in the city while on sports mode was 9.5 which is quite good as it was a test drive vehicle and I did try to push it as much as I could.

All in all if the Sharp variant is priced anywhere between 15-16.5, then MG has a winner on their hands!