Got the delivery of the SX4 VDi yesterday (29th May 2011) from Motorcraft Sahibabad, though the car was initially booked at Rohan Motors, Ghaziabad some bad experience forced me to cancel the booking from them.
Though I will be writing a detailed report on the decision making process, shortlisting the dealer, entire experience. Initially I would like to say that Motorcraft is just awesome, where the other dealers are being run by people having lots of money, with no or very little enthusiasm for motor vehicles, the owner of Motorcraft is an automobile enthusiast himself and takes part in rallies. He started off by automobile workshop in Noida.
Initial Instant Feedback - Car has a good road presence, very good driving position, A-pillar quarter glass DOES NOT hinder visibility much, engine is smooth and with very less in-cabin diesel clutter
10 kms - 19 kms : Being my second car the enthusiasm was
not as much as when I drove my first car (Swift VDi) from the showroom in April 2007. Car has good road presence and the road to my house from the showroom as some bad patches of road, the car managed the potholes with quite an ease. The suspension is not like the Linea, SX4 D has a stiff suspension, where you do not feel any of the road's bump, but I guess thats not right setup for the kind of roads out country has to offer. First thing I did was to drive to the nearest petrol station for some fuel, Rs.1000 gave the dead fuel meter needle some life and it then rested on the half tank mark.The car was then parked for almost 1 week since I was waiting for the registration number to arrive. During this waiting period I did a lot of research on upgrading the tyres/alloys but then finally settled for the stock fitment. Major reason being high cost of tyres (good tyres were all 7000+) and no tyre vendor was providing a proper warranty on the alloys. For now I will search for some OE alloys, buy them and keep them for my next tyre change.
20 kms - 90 kms : Drove the car to Lajpat nagar market for seat covers and sun-control film. Its like a "mandi" (hindi for local vegetable market) for car accessories. Everything is available on every shop, even if they dont have something that you have asked for, they will quickly fetch it from the "godown". Seat covers for 3000.00 and sun control film (Garware International Lite) for 950.00.
90 kms - 150 kms : Once I received the RC, the car movement was restricted to movement within the city. First Surprise came in the form of a rattle from the left side of the dash board. This would happen when the car rolled on a rough patch, on-road reflectors, etc. This would also come when I would accelerate in a lower gear. I was very annoyed and pissed off on this. A car which costed me 8.5 lakh has a rattle!! that too in the initial kms. Well I convinced myself that I will blast the service center when I go for servicing. Another "issue" that I was facing was that the steering was wobbling at a specific angle while turning at high (40-50 kmph) speeds. Something in my head told me to get the tyre pressure checked. It turned out that all the tyres were inflated at 40+ psi though
the company recommendation is 30 psi for all the tyres. Got the tyre pressure corrected and the wobble disappeared. I fail to understand how and why new tyres are over inflated.
150 kms - till date : Got the tank full done on 11th June and by the time I reached home (after running the car for 20 kms) the fuel gauge needle was one notch below the "F"
!! And for every 20 kms run it needle would drop by 1 notch. Now the tank has the capacity of 50 liters and there are 10 notches on the fuel gauge. So simple math suggests that each notch corresponds to 5 litres of fuel and since its dropping at the rate of 1 notch/20 kms, the fuel efficiency I am getting is 4 kmpl!!!
I am now at 252 kms since the full tank, and the fuel gauge is one notch above half tank mark. Technically it looks like some calibration design issue with the gauge or the fuel station tendered incorrect quantity (it is the one opposite to CNG pump, when you are moving from Kale Khan ISBT towards Ashram ). This design flaw is with Swift's fuel gauge as well, but the other way round. In Swift the gauge needle will drop at a leisurely pace till it hits the half tank mark. And then it will drop like a dead fly. I am seriously hoping that this is a gauge callibration design, else MSIL would be facing a legal notice from me, which I will make sure is well publicized to ensure that no one else falls into the trap of 21 kmpl ARAI tested fuel economy for SX4 VDi. Plus the rattle that I mentioned above, today disappeared mysteriously, now the cabin is as silent as it was the very first day.
Positives Very responsive engine, unlike Punto 90, which though lighter in weight, with the same engine, accelerates like a brick. Excellent sound proofing to clearly listen to someone speaking outside, you will need to roll down your windows. Excellent driving position almost like an SUV. Very good front seat headroom, not so good at the back due to sloping roof profile. AC is definitely better than my last ride (Swift VDi)
Negatives Rattle/vibration from the dashboard though it has disappeared, it should have not come at the first place, fuel gauge calibration (this is still under review and will change after I go for the tanks top up)
You will miss 6th gear, because it would have made the car run much more smoother and refined at higher speeds
I will be adding more as and when I add on to the kms, will post all the issues that I face, solutions, service costs, etc. in this thread
Fuel Efficiency Update - Got the tank topped up today, it gulped 20.29 litres and ran for 332.5 kms, so the effeciency came out to be
16.38 kmpl which is very good considering that the car has just completed about 600 kms, ran mostly in city (Indirapuram - Gurgaon - Indirapuram) with 100% AC, and its more than 1200 kgs in weight