Advice required : City V 2012 model or Linea Emotion MJD 2012 model I'am planning to buy a new sedan in the C2 segment and have been checking out the market for the available options for some time now.
When I joined service 14 years ago, my family was not having any car. Since those days I have dreamt of the Honda City, and always wished that I could buy this car some day. When the search for the sedan started I thought that this time I’ll surely buy my “Dream Car”. The cars that I have considered and test driven are as follows :-
City 2012 model
Verna
Rapid
Vento
City was excellent to drive in the city but in bad roads it was bumpy. Did’nt get much feel of the steering. Plush interiors but lacks features.
VW showroom had the trendline model as the TD car. Vento was good and the engine was noisy but the vento highline diesel at Rs. 11.20 lakhs OTR was out of budget.
Verna was full of features but somehow I did not like the car. Plus the attitude of the dealer was something that I could not stand, though I own a Santro at present and hence know the dealer. The dealership had no TD cars, so could not do a TD.
Rapid definitely handles better than the City and maybe Vento also due to its suspension, but it has a powerful but noisy engine. Moreover I found it to be a very basic car with no features as VW has purposefully placed it way below the Vento in the market.
During all these visits to the showrooms I was accompanied by my wife and son. At this point it was sort of consensus in favour of the Honda City.
My wife started taking keen interest in this matter. Having a sedan was a long time dream for her and she wanted to make a valuable contribution in this purchase. One day during the morning tea she suddenly brought out the Linea out of nowhere. She had seen a Linea the previous day and the car caught her imagination. She insisted that I should look at the Linea, though FIAT was never in my plan. I booked online for the test drive of Linea T Jet and started reading the reviews of Linea in the net. I specially liked the ownership thread of J.Ravi and also his travelouge to Leh. In the meantime I had two test drives of the MJD but the Tjet was never brought for TD.
I have driven petrol car since my college days and I had neven driven a diesel car except for the two TD of MJD Emotion. I started the TD rather reluctantly and thought that I would obviously find some fault with the MJD Emotion to convince my wife against the car. But I must admit honestly that I was clearly knocked off by the Linea and actually I have started loving the Linea MJD after the second TD. I even TD the City immediately after the second TD of the Linea and was amazed to see the way Linea handles bad roads and sharp turns at reasonable speed as compared to the City.
Now the Tjet makes an entry. Since I had booked online for TD of T Jet about 3 weeks back, I put a mail at the CEO's desk at Fiat. The reaction was instant and the territory sales incharge contacted me the very next day for a suitable time for the TD. I also received a mail from Fiat HQ. I was shocked to know later that the TD vehicle came from 250KM just for me. The vehicle was mindblowing, a frugal beast, I should say. The power and acceleration was rocking and it amused my ten year old son. Even a freind, who owns a City did a TD with me and he was really impressed. After the TD, my only concerns are
a. One year old vehicle.
b. Mileage, as we both got 10.3 and 10.7 respectively.
At the end of the day I felt very embarassed that I put some people to trouble but the dealer was kind hearted and had no issues with this.
Now coming to my requirements,
a. Budget of 10L (typical for C1 segment).
b. My monthly usage is 1300-1500 KMs per month, mostly city driving with some long drive once/twice in a month. I am almost certain that this is going to increase with time. City driving in my case does not mean bumper-to-bumper drive, like in the metros. Roads in the industrial town are wide and less crowded.
c. I would love to have a car that is fun to drive in the highways coupled with better stability, handling and safety features rather than instant acceleration.
Well about City and Tjet, I can simply say that Tjet felt better. I have TD City thrice on bad roads and Highways. First time I was thrilled by the Vtec engine and almost finalised my car. But when Linea came into the competition I have TD City twice against the Tjet and MJD respectively for I was not willing from my heart that the City should loose the battle as it was a dream car for me. After lot of resistance within me I have now almost discarded the CITY in favour of the Linea. The Tjet is a sort of addiction, that is my personal feeling. Once the turbo comes into play, the acceleration has no match. I have TD the TJet on a highway for a 20Km streach and my son was thrilled to see the speedo cross 100, then 120 upto 140 when I put on a hard brake to check the braking. There was no noise except for wind noise (from the front windows) and the whistle of the turbo. But again I had to restrain my heart. With my usage of 1300+KM (I am certain that this is going to increase when I have such an excellent car at my disposal) and with the increasing cost of petrol in India, my mind says MJD Emotion is the car for me.
The City V manual costs around 9.7L OTR and the Linea MJD Emotion costs around 10.2L OTR.
Now I would request the learned members of the forum to advice whether my line of thought is correct or I need to do a rethinking on the whole issue. Please offer your valuable inputs for I need to make a decision fast and I cannot make any further delay. |