We are dreaming about our next car
As many of you know I am in the market to get a new ride for myself and have been researching TBHP for the last 5-6 months for all kinds of reviews and driving impressions, some of your writings and travel logs have influenced me in a big way and are surely helping me in deciding my next ride. Some of the things that I think would need in my next car are as follows
Looks
The car should look appealing from all angles. I know looks are subjective but still I thought this is something I need to pen down as a requirement.
Peace of mind
This is absolutely must, cont think of me spending long time in repairs and sometimes the car needs to take some beating, may not be attended to immediately. For example my Baleno sometimes complains but we cannot give it for long service (Over 1-2 days of repairs) as it was the only car doing school pickup/drop service and not being available meant kiddo missing school.
Safety
Should definitely have 2 Airbags and ABS as standard, BTW most of the cars in this price range have this.
Music
This is something that is important to me, all my audio CD’s are packed nicely and kept in the attic. I have all those CD’s ripped in lossless format and play that in my Western Digital Media Player attached to a 1TB drive (almost full) of Music. Hence moral of the story I don’t need 6 CD changers (read Altis) never will, the iPods cant store all my music hence I don’t use one hence I may not use Aux in support much, what I will use most of the time is USB support, which is only available in Civic and Kazashi. I have still not understood why this isn’t available on all cars in this price range when this is a common feature in sub 10L cars?
TCO
Have a feeling Skoda’s have higher TCO than Honda’s and Toyota’s. Also after reading some horror stories on Skoda I am little jittery in buying one for myself as I surely need to keep the car for at least 7 years or closer 100,000 Kms.
Split Seats/Access to Boot
while this may sound as something which is elementary but I think it’s more important than that. As we travel with Kids and lot of times Kids get restless and need something to kill time (Like eating, watching movies, reading story books or playing some game with Mom) for this I need to stop the car and access the boot from behind the car and get the stuff the kiddo wants. This shows down our progress hence access to the boot from within the cabin area is something that helps.
Spirited Driving
We both love spirited driving and hence the driving should be a pleasure
Budget
This is one aspect which we consciously decided not to get too fixed on hence there are only guidelines, Like for example it should be above 10L, Should be spacious as folks sleep when we travel. Have fixed 15L OTR as a sweet spot, we could move this to about 10% north or south depending on what we like. (Heck I would like to move it 50%
but its proving to be more difficult than I earlier thought)
Petrol or Diesel
Well this questions does not matter to me at the moment (I think) as in last 5 years my Baleno has done 48,000 Kms and i am sure the rate would be similar for the new car, as once it arrives the new one will serve Kiddo and old one will be with me doing office duty.
Test Drives
We love our test drive route on the sarjapur road, its got the straight roads where you can touch 3 digit figures, its got two of our favorite humps to test the GC of the car, and hence we usually take the car on that route for test drives.
So what are the options that I have? Starting with Cruze, The reliable Altis, The fun to drive Civic, The buttery engine Laura, The (Yuck) Innova, The sluggish Tata Aria, and the cult following of Tata Safari. Folks please don’t laugh at the list, you might ask (Dude what do you want to buy Car/MUV/MPV/SUV, first decide what you want). My answer I would look at everything that I can buy with the money I am spending and then decide, because some of the things you only decide once you drive the vehicle and feel it and if that means changing segments (From Car to SUV) so be it.
And last but not the least my dream car. Did I miss Anyone?
Any suggestions from T-BHPians?
Next Test Drives starts.