Ladies and gentleman please meet Dhanno and Banno.
As a child horses, their gallop and speed have always mesmerized me. Any movie/comics featuring horses was an instant favorite. Around the same time the famous movie Sholey was released. Loved that movie (although as a kid I hated Gabbar), full of action and horses sprinting around. So much was the love that we pestered dad to buy the LP of Sholey dialogs with Songs (the 3 LP set) (Thank you Dad).
There is one scene where Basanti on her Dhunno is being chased by dacoits and she says
Bhaag Dhanno Bhaag
(Leaving the rest aside as it did not made sense to me as a child then ) and the lady horse sprints like crazy giving me a rush of blood/Goosebumps and the male horses chasing a run for their money.
So for someone who loves horses it wasnt very easy to come up with a cheeky female horse name, which also signified speed, age and love. So while talking to someone in the family I was casually asked
How is your Dhanno running? That sealed it, and I named my Baleno Dhanno. She sure sprints like crazy when pressed hard surprising me many times, I get the same rush of blood and Goosebumps when she touches speeds that I never thought she was capable of with no drama. All I have to do is say Bhaag Dhanno Bhag (and press the accelerator).
One more horse name excites me
Hero (
Hero, the fastest horse in the world; owned by the legendary
The Phantom -
List of fictional horses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
So when the new ride was decided, I decided to name her keeping in line with Team BHP tradition and was looking for something similar sounding like Dhanno. Here comes
Banno.
Also ran were the usual suspects
Butter smooth Laura (which really impressed us very much), if only Skoda A.S.S was like Toyota this baby is a winner all the way. To top it all one continues to hear horror stories about fixing fog lamps as an accessory and a ridiculous price quoted by the dealer for that. Over a 8-10 year ownership one is bound to change a few things to make the car drive enjoyable (Like the music system etc.) and Skoda are not really well suited and trained in this.
The Stunning Cruze, Looks really cool with a Diesel heart (Which although economical I find difficulty to adjust to especially in Sedan). Has ultra soft suspensions and hence even the small speed breakers look like mountains.
The new kid on the block Kizashi, and the Grand Vitara. Both are typical Suzuki cars. Decent engine, good pickup and good space. Loved the drive of Kizashi on the smooth roads but was a bit unsettled on uneven surface. Low GC was another problem and it almost always touched the bigger speed breakers even after I tried all the gymnastics. While driving over the Sarjpur Speed breakers (Railway line ones) I could see worried looks on the face of SA (Making us also slightly worried). Grand Vitara was dropped mainly because of long waiting (3 months) and no discounts and of it being petrol. Also we have been owning a Suzuki all this while and would like to try something different (variety is the spice of life you see).
Civic was test driven, its a nice car with decent amount of space the discounts made it simpler and easier to decide. Dealers apart from cash discount were throwing in the Caska system with Bluetooth and rear parking camera. So it was shortlisted.
Altis was also test drive multiple times, the older Altis was not fun to drive but the new one was much better. Also the video player and the new ICE made it easier to decide. We also felt having a Bluetooth system helps, as you dont have to carry the Bluetooth hands free when driving alone. Hence Altis was also shortlisted.
Fortuner is one car (Oops SUV) we both loved. Although lack of equipment did bother but was never a deal breaker. With the launch of XUV we felt this segment will take some time to mature as competition is just waking up and possibly in few years time we might have better cars/deals coming through. Hence although a tentative shortlist we wanted to wait for sometime.
Need peaceful ownership (Until recently I had rarely opened the bonnet of the car, now I do it regularly) and low cost of ownership hence the Skodas sisters Laura (Petrol/Diesel) were out.
VW was never considered as they never really called back or made any effort at all to give me a well deserving test drive (Absolutely pathetic IMHO).
Tata Aria was test-driven and we felt the 2.2 to be not very responsive,
Ford Endeavor had too low seating and that created problems with visibility.
Safari was never considered (although a great looking SUV I must add) as new
Merlin is around the corner and better fit and finish is something of a must.
Innova was suggested, my response, well! I would rather walk or continue to take the Volvo bus (No offence to anyone just my opinion)
It was 2008 when I had sold my Indica and since then Dhanno has been constantly busy with school dropping/picking up business (Which meant she had to run like clockwork and only time her problems could be attended to were weekends or holidays). Dhanno occasionally threw tantrums (although very minimal I must add) that sometimes got us worried especially while taking her on the highway as some of the parts availability for Dhanno is not instant (sometime it takes folks a few days to get them and about a week to get the car ready). Apart from this the space inside Dhanno was just enough for three folks with luggage (We village wallas travel with everything that we might need you see).
We were in a flux as to which one to buy.
Toyota as usual were slightly high headed they have wonderful cars and I would love to own them someday, but you see as a customer I need to be pampered a little, given attention.
Toyota already have too many customers hence maybe did not pay as much attention or were not as interested in coming to the negotiating table.
Apart from this there were hardly any colors in
Altis to choose from and a different color meant waiting for about a month and constant pressure that they would raise the prices anytime soon (like sword hanging over my head). My view was either you deliver the car in a weeks time so as price increase does not impact me or give me a price protection at the time of booking. Either way i don't like to be in a negotiating position of weakness having no elbow room to negotiate. Hence dropped the Altis (for good) and Fortuner (for now).
On the other hand
Honda cared that I had considered their car for my next purchase. Did almost everything possible under to sun to help me come to a decision. Multiple test-drives on Civic (to test its GC problems). Calls were responded fairly quickly. Last but not the least freebies and discounts made it look like a killer deal.
Some of you might be wondering why on earth such a wide range of cars considered (right from 14/15L to 25L OTR Bangalore), Petrol and Diesel both, Sedan/SUV/MUV, it really does not make sense. To me it does here is why. Dhanno is 6 years old and @ 62K and in most probably would be with us till it touches 90K-100K (3-4 years time). Now we need a bigger car/SUV so if I go for expensive SUV Dhanno would be needed in service for surely 5 years as it would be difficult to manage another Car loan (Which is slightly long shot), if I buy a Car (~15L) then I have the capacity to finish this new car loan in 3 years time and then Dhanno can be replaced with something more spacious and bigger (possibly an SUV). So for us both options were on the table.