[mayankjha1806]

So Saturday the Mitsubishi guys turned up with a red Cedia. Looks nice and low key from outside (suits my taste). All four disc brakes, only one varient (Cedia Sports), as i sit on the drivers seat the first thing i see is.

There is no music system, Its been taken off and i can see wires inside and the spedometer isnt working, not sure why.

The first question i asked is about the relationship with HM, his answer was we just use them to get the cars here as there is not Mitsubishi Indian entity yet (confusing).

How many service centers in India/Karnataka.
In all over Karnataka only one , and not sure what he mentioned about India my ears were still absorbing the shock.

We started driving the car felt stable, good road grip, took it on Sarjapur road over mountain speed breakers and no scraping. Which is good. Dont know what speeds i touched hence decided to ask him.

Me : why the things were removed from the car and speedo wasent working.
SA : Said this is not a test drive car and may be sold sold to some customer, we still dont have the test drive car.

Told him that this isnt giving me any comfortable feeling about buying as i might get a car driven here and there and not really fresh and new, he said "Sir i am being honest".

Well thank you for being honest, but still i dont feel comfortable.

Post that my wife decided to drive the car. Her impression after finishing the drive was that the gear was very still and stearing did not give her the condifence to push the car faster (We dont know what speeds we did, but can guess it must be around 80-100). It was shaking and car was getting jolted around.

[mayankjha1806]

There was another comment that was made when asked how come they are able to sell Cedia without a test drive car and the answer was

"People buy Cedia without a test drive sir, they know everything about Cedia and just look at it and book it, its such a good car"

Is it the same in other cities, or its just Bangalore madness?

[AirWind]

That's why they manage double digit numbers month over month (read max of 20's)

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

There was another comment that was made when asked how come they are able to sell Cedia without a test drive car and the answer was

"People buy Cedia without a test drive sir, they know everything about Cedia and just look at it and book it, its such a good car"

Is it the same in other cities, or its just Bangalore madness?

[mayankjha1806]

Last week when we went to Lifestyle, i decided to pay Ravindu Toyota another visit to look at the new Altis. Found it to be better than the old one especially the sore point about the music system in the old one.

Added to that the SA mentioned that the engine has been tuned for higher performance, tried finding any new Altis test drive report, couldn't find one on Team BHP. Anyone has test driven the car and has any inputs. I am yet to schedule a test drive of the new Altis.

The other thing that surprised me was the head lamps were mentioned as HID's but did not see the usual black ring that i usually see in the HID head lamps. Is this really an HID (I am sure Toyota wouldn't be fooling around) but does someone has a clue as to why they look different.

[sharninder]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Last week when we went to Lifestyle, i decided to pay Ravindu Toyota another visit to look at the new Altis. Found it to be better than the old one especially the sore point about the music system in the old one.

This thread is a little old but I'm just curious, which car did you finally settle for ?

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by sharninder

This thread is a little old but I'm just curious, which car did you finally settle for ?

Nope we are still holding on to our decision, some changes in life may impact the purchase decision hence. The cars that are in the shortlist are Civic, and Altis, but what we really want to buy is a Fortuner, cant stretch that much today hence also awaiting Merlin's launch.

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

There is no music system, Its been taken off and i can see wires inside and the spedometer isnt working, not sure why.

The first question i asked is about the relationship with HM, his answer was we just use them to get the cars here as there is not Mitsubishi Indian entity yet (confusing).

Me : why the things were removed from the car and speedo wasent working.
SA : Said this is not a test drive car and may be sold sold to some customer, we still dont have the test drive car.

Told him that this isnt giving me any comfortable feeling about buying as i might get a car driven here and there and not really fresh and new, he said "Sir i am being honest".

Well thank you for being honest, but still i dont feel comfortable.

Well glad to know you finally got a test drive. When I bought my car in June, I have chased these guys at Auto pacifica for 4-5 weekends before that, always gave some excuse or other to avoid giving TD. I finally got fed up and left it there. This speedo and odometer disconnection is rampant even in VW I heard. I pity the new customer, he gets a car which must have been ripped for a few thousand kms in TDs, but the odometer display will read some 30-40km on delivery day. Btw, what was the on-road price of Cedia sports now? It was 11.3L OTR in april-may and there was a tax revision on CKD vehicles after that, that increased the price by 10% if I'm right.

There was another comment that was made when asked how come they are able to sell Cedia without a test drive car and the answer was

"People buy Cedia without a test drive sir, they know everything about Cedia and just look at it and book it, its such a good car"

Is it the same in other cities, or its just Bangalore madness?

Same answer I got, in fact they were cheeky enough to say "Pay the booking advance and we'll give you the TD"

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

Same answer I got, in fact they were cheeky enough to say "Pay the booking advance and we'll give you the TD"

That is just horrible, and just not acceptable, gone are the days when this was probably acceptable.

Don't these guys learn from the past, i remember when Palio was launched and wanted a test drive badly for the 1.6 GTX i was not given the test drive (High headed attitude of the dealer). End result Palio and FIAT got such a bad mouthing from customers that they still are unable to recover in-spite of having a much superior product (Palio was better than any other car available in that segment at that time). Not sure what happened to Sundaram Motors in Chennai. In Bangalore i see them having dealership of Chevrolet and Merc.

[_raVan_]

I dont know if you have gone through this, but a test drive/ownership report of the new Altis (although the auto variant) is present in here.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...speed-cvt.html

[mayankjha1806]

Today we test drove the Altis 1.8GL and boy what an improvement in engine, although it still not a match with Laura's pleasure giving drive but still runs much smoother than before and has loads of power. In our drive to Sarjapur not once the engine felt strained we did push the car to 100+ speeds and was able to pull in any gear.

The new music system with screen is a gem, only trouble is you cant watch video when the car is moving (SA said there might be a RTO rule), but i found it stupid, also you cannot put additional screens on the seat headrest they plays videos while the car is moving.

The bluetooth connection and the mic placement was good, we tried connecting our phone and it worked flawlessly - makes the hands-free headset redundant. The smart key is also a nice addition.

Seems like a sensible buy now with improvements to the engine it atleast wont be a slouch.

BLR OTR for 1.8 GL = 17,13,490 and 1.8G = 15,34,299, and no discounts from the T company. Come on Toyota this is a petrol car and freebies would be welcome. To make matters worse the T company is planning to increase the price :(

[mayankjha1806]

I am now looking at Altis Petrol/Diesel (If Diesel is decent enough to drive) and also trying out to see if we can buy the Fortuner instead. With the launch of new SUV from Mahindra it is now little confusing. Will have to go and try the new SUV and make a choice if i can get an SUV for the price of Altis nothing like it. What i would be worried about Mahindra is

• Long Painless service and After sales experience
• Reliability
• How well the car ages, planning to keep it for 100,000 Kms (Which means i would probably need 10 years for that). My Baleno has really held up well in the last 7 years and i don't see any problem in keeping it for another 3 years or so.
• Quality of fit and finish
• Never liked the long gear danda of the Scorpio (Also don't like it in Fortuner, but Mahindra was worse). The new one seems to have a small sporty gear lever.

I know Mahindra has always been high on features but they frequently fail or don't work most of the time, also the QC has been better than Tata's but nowhere in the league of Toyota. Also i don't like the looks of the XUV500 but if its good in other areas i would not mind the looks.

Any suggestions, views?

[suman]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Any suggestions, views?

Take a TD of the XUV500 - it doesn't look that bad really. My only concern would be that one frequently hears of issues on Scorpios these days so I'm not sure if M&M QC is what it was touted to be earlier.

And why on earth would you want to buy a Fortuner at double the price & hardly any features worth comparing? Unless you're going to be hitting mud, slush or ice very frequently & would feel the absence of a 4L.........

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by suman

And why on earth would you want to buy a Fortuner at double the price & hardly any features worth comparing? Unless you're going to be hitting mud, slush or ice very frequently & would feel the absence of a 4L.........

That's exactly the point of confusion "Why should i pay 10L extra for same or less features" or to word is slightly differently What am i getting in that 10L extra?. With the current knowledge that i have i would say I will get mental peace and trouble free service, but then the question i would ask myself is Is that worth 10L?.

I guess most would be answered in time to come, i don't know the answers and don't think anyone would have concrete answers to these questions. In a furry i went and read a few Scorpio ownership threads just to see what the ownership experience of a Mahindra is like? There have been quiet a few problems listed.

Still not getting the level of confidence to Close my eyes and buy a XUV500 which is possibly there with Fortuner.

[suman]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Still not getting the level of confidence to Close my eyes and buy a XUV500 which is possibly there with Fortuner.

Well, my advice would be to keep your eyes wide open irrespective of whether it is a Toyota or an M&M. You can PM Rhandle for his recent experiences with Toyota, in respect of his Fortuner

Don't be swayed too much with the Fortuner Blogs here on the forum, I'm not sure if all of them are as objective as they should be

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

I am now looking at Altis Petrol/Diesel (If Diesel is decent enough to drive) and also trying out to see if we can buy the Fortuner instead.

Any suggestions, views?

Does your requirements really warrant for an SUV? If not, a sedan like Altis Petrol will be a much better choice.