[sai_ace]

I own a Linea. One with the High GC. Sure it does look like a lady trying lift her skirt while avoiding a puddle - I think I can live with it. The confidence that comes with that high GC is very very reassuring. Have been on narrow forest trails in Ooty with ease whilst having 5 people on board, thanks to the generous GC.

For folks who talk about handling and stuff here, IMHO I think my High GC linea still handles like a dream yet giving me a scrape free ride. A very comforting thought indeed.

Funnily, whenever I spoke about the Linea to any non auto enthusiast who owns one - they have only mentioned about the scraping. Even a car pool friend whose husband owns one, asked me how come my car didnt scrape yet her husband's Linea did every time they went over the same speed hump. Imagine - that is their first thought about their car.

[dicor]

Voted for 2

I have fear of engine oil sump and I hate that screeching sound. No matter how careful I was, sometimes sudden appearance of big potholes or breakers always made me thought about GC.

Ground Clearance alone is not a factor for me during purchase. I compute it with wheelbase and suspension. Similar GC for a sedan and small hatch can bring lot of difference. A good GC car with soft suspension and a low GC with stiff suspension will behave poles apart.

Approach angle - despite enough GC, if front overhang is large, you will always suffer. Elevated ramps, large craters keep taking toll on front bumper.
For the very same reason, I never considered Jeep Compass during my purchase. Though they reduced the front overhang in Trailhawk version later. No offence to JC owners, everyone has their own priorities.

Ramp over angle - large wheelbase always compromise ramp over a angles. Smaller Mahindra Bolero with 180 mm of GC can handle inclines better than TATA Safari having 210 mm of GC.

Even if I have to buy a car with low GC, I would include underbody protection film as one of the parameter.

[swapnil.awate]

Nice poll.
Voted for option 1.

Any engineering design is full of compromises/trade-offs. It’s matter of which compromise suits you. I prefer dynamics of a car having adequate GC over top heavy-rolling nature of a car having high GC. Fortunately we have cars like Ford Freestyle, which give us the best of both worlds.
I need dynamics every minute, I may need higher GC once in a while. Moreover, with proper driving techniques, I may tackle most (not all) of the situations. But for that one instance I don’t want to compromise dynamics of a car.

[Storm2.0]

A lot depends on suspension set up also. A soft one with high GC may reduce considerably on full load compared to a tighter suspension.

[sahil624]

I’ve voted for option 2.
Apart from peace of mind of not scraping the underbody, I think the kind of comfort it offers on long routes, as compared to low slung cars, is phenomenal.

[gatsby_great]

I think high ground clearance ( in India )adds a lot of value to a car. I live in a hilly place with roads having unstable side slopes. You don't know when a loose rock/boulder may be lying around. Also, many a times road surface is just too uneven. Unmarked speed breakers are also handled well by a car having higher clearance

[charanreddy]

Have always had Cars with decent GC.

Chevrolet Beat ~ 175 MM.
Tata Nexon ~ 210MM.

The peace of mind that comes with it is to be experienced. On the other hand, when ever I have driven by Cousin's Figo Petrol, it was a bad experience as it scrapes on small bumps as well.

In India, Low GC is something I cant live with.

[COMMUTER]

The Tata Indica Xeta we owned for a decade was an enigma. It had just 165mm but it was very capable on not just bad roads but even off-road to an extent! I have scrapped the New Figo a few times(~5 times, 92k kms done) which had 174mm but cant hold a candle to the Indica in despatching less favorable conditions. I have never scrapped in the Indica. I used to take the Indica on a shortcut to my place of work through an off-road like scenario involving a dried up lake bed and a tricky terrain alongside a railway track without batting an eyelid. When I tried it in my Figo it scrapped the daylights out of me and I stopped taking that route immediately after that.

[Malhi]

Absolutely not satisfied with the ground clearance of my polo tdi. It scrapes the underbelly almost on every long trip, if loaded with luggage and 4 people. Small potholes and even the most ordinary looking speed breakers then become nightmares to tackle.

While it's true that roads in India have improved considerably but under construction patches, badly designed speed bumps, railway crossings, monsoon potholes, and interior village roads do not permit low ground clearance cars an easy passage.

[wheelguy]

As has been said by dicor and Storm2.0, ground clearance alone cannot be isolated for making or breaking decisions. It's best to decide based on the combination of the following:

1. Wheelbase. (Read breakover angle.)

2. Suspension setup, whether softly sprung or stiff.

3. Wheel-size and tire size. Of the cars with same(or similar) ground clearance but different tire sizes, I would any day prefer the car with bigger tires over the other.

4. Front and rear overhang lengths. (Matters when one has to frequently tackle steep ramps, otherwise can be ignored.)

In real life situations like the one shown below, of two vehicles with same ground clearance, one with shorter wheelbase will have advantage over the one with longer wheelbase:

* Image picked from other thread (What is "Ramp Breakover Angle")

[SanjayDalal]

I voted in favour of a high ground clearance.

For long, I have been fed up of potholed city roads (esp.during & after monsoons) and improperly laid speedbreakers. I enjoy driving outside the city, esp. on secondary roads.

A GC of 210mm was one of the important points for choosing a Honda BRV V-CVT early 2017. At the showroom they had placed a Coke 600ml /750ml?? plastic bottle (memory a bit hazy) beneath the body, just behind the front tire to emphasize the point.

I have never bottomed out even on extremely bad roads with 4 people & decent amount of luggage on board. This gives me the confidence to go along at a fair clip in almost any road condition. On several occasions, passing the SUVs from the Big Three Germans, whose drivers had reduced speed to a crawl on very bad secondary roads (trying to avoid expensive undercarriage damage). (No offence intended to the above owners)
And yes, in the city, I just slow down and drive over big speed breakers, while others have to come almost to a halt and ease over them.

I agree for spirited driving, a lower GC is of course better, but then it depends on one's driving profile.

[manjunathkl]

I voted for "Ground Clearance Matters" in my buying decisions.

My car ownership started with Maruti 800 -> Santro -> Chevy Beat -> Fiat Linea -> Hyundai Creta

Maruti 800 and Santro didn't have phenomenal ground clearance, but because of their short wheelbase, it could clear all the moon craters on Indian roads. With Chevy beat and Fiat Linea it was a different story altogether. Beat would occasionally scrape on giant speed breakers (read car breakers). But Fiat Linea (2010 model) came with a lower GC (165mm) for such a big wheelbase, it scraped almost all potholes, speed brakers etc. After 2 years of owning Linea, I got a company approved GC upgrade at A.S.S. After this the new GC was 185mm and it really improved a lot and it fully stopped scrapping.

Now, I own a compact SUV with 190mm GC. If I have to sum it up - I will call it "PEACE OF MIND". Some of the speed breakers I would drastically slow down on my Linea, I just glide through it on my Creta. A GC above 180mm simply removes the stress and fear of scrapping.

Indian roads is like a Harry Potter movie, you may get anything on Indian roads - people, animals, pushcarts, broken-down trucks, abandoned Bounce scooters, potholes, large stones, debris fallen from goods vehicles, open manholes, speed breakers, police barricades.... I simply can't list them all here. In all this madness if your car is capable of handling some of these problems without bothering you - it is worth it to consider.

[msiva75]

Voted for Option 1.
Completed 1.2L KMs in my polo and never faced any major GC issues. My opinion is that we need to have balanced approach where GC & vehicle stability also maters.

[bansal.sushant]

I have a 3rd Honda City with ground clearance ~160mm.
I have driven this car everywhere, and taken it to mountains also, barely does it scrape, if driven properly.

However, just yesterday it happened. Most of the roads around my house were closed with barricades (due to lockdown) and others had one side blocked and the other side converted to two way. I found an exit, but later realized they had put some metallic pipes there to act as speedbreaker. Since, it was made very narrow due to blocking of the other side, I could not cross it diagonally. It ended up scraping my City big time, in fact it also damaged the exhaust pipe (it hangs right in the centre). :(

[Dinesh_Malhotra]

I remember owning the first generation Ford Figo and for the four full years I owned it, I was on a constant lookout for small little bumps that could scrape (and thud) my car easy.