[bottle]

Starting my ownership experience thread for the latest addition to the household

Background story – Around May, I decided to retire my Palio 1.2, bought early 2004 due a bunch of minor niggles that kept cropping up and was becoming expensive to fix.

Selection Process - Obvious upgrade choice – Having owned 2 Fiats in a row, it would be the Fiat Punto, had also been in a couple of Bhp’ians drives and pretty much liked what I saw.

I also decided however to scout around and look at other options as well and VW was one of the first places I looked. Visited on a Sunday and sat in the car and found it decidedly cramped with my knees knocking the dashboard and a bunch of uninterested salesmen and walked out.

After this a few personal events made me postpone my car purchase, so forward to September and I started the process again after selling the 1.2 for a decent price. I was looking around at pretty much every hatch and was planning to take a test drive. Then one evening was driving past VW (Sundaram) again with a friend and decided to have a look one last time.
This time surprisingly found the front quite comfortable, narrowed down the cause to the height adjust system which I wasn’t aware of during my earlier visit which increases the height by pushing the seat upwards as well as diagonally forwards (thus the knee knocking) Was attended by a polite and not pushy salesman who was quite helpful and unhurried even though it was 7:30PM. Made an appointment for a TD.

Have to note that is a surprise that they had a Test Vehicle in the variant I wanted. I guess visiting Tata Showrooms has lowered my expectations a lot!


The Test Drive

Moving on to the actual Test Drive, was impressed with the torque since the car was able to pull from a standing stop in 3rd gear without effort. This was an error on my part since I had assumed the gearing to be something like Optra where you reverse was on the extreme left and 1st next to it as opposed to pushing down and engaging 1st gear on the Polo. Other than that the biggest thing you notice is how isolated you are from the outside. NVH is at an absolute minimum and the suspension soaks up almost anything. It really felt like you were isolated from the world outside. Gearshift was another positive with its short throw and felt great to use. Main negative noticed at this point was the horrible lack of rear legroom.

The Competition

After this I was somewhat sold on the Polo but wanted to take a look at the Punto before I finalized anything. I requested for a TD at VST Motors. They did not have a TD car available when I visited and said they would bring on home the next day. The next day the car that came was a 1.2 instead of the 1.4 that I had asked for. I took it for a spin anyway. First thing I noticed is that even though it is only a 1.2 it’s a very enthusiastic/responsive engine and can put a smile on your face. Another plus is the steering and handling and you really feel connected to the road in short a real driver’s car. I am not sure about the exact torque figures but I was able to slow down climb a speed up and accelerate again without any fuss in third gear. So I assume the 1.4 would be even better.

The Decision

I also was considering Fabia but discounted it almost immediately hearing the horrendous stories. The main decision would be between the Punto and Polo. VST offered significant discounts making the Punto a very VFM option and being a real drivers car. Polo on the other hand impressed with its isolation. I felt that this would be a better car to say ferry around parents and family around with slightly better comfort. Another thing that made me nervous about the Punto was the number of niggles reported in new cars in various Punto/Linea ownership threads. I was trying to avoid another experience like my Palio 1.6 where I had to run to a service station every month. VST is close but mostly over capacity from what I have seen and Concorde is a bit too far for comfort. So decided to take a chance on an unknown entity here and booked the Polo.

Buying Experience and Delivery

Buying experience was pretty smooth. Delivery was promised in a week after making full payment. I handed in the cheque on Friday (Nov. end) and payment cleared on Saturday and I think they received the vehicle in their yard on Monday. My dad has asked for delivery on Wednesday since it was an auspicious day. However they couldn’t do that and their reason was that their yard turned into slush after heavy rains and they are reluctant to take any cars out!. My dad postponed delivery to Tuesday the following week. They got the vehicle registration and other formalities done Monday and did the installation of accessories (Sun film, Mud flaps etc that came with the bouquet offer) and delivered on Tuesday. I was tied up with work and was not able to go get delivery so that experience went to Dad. I was able to make it later and we did the Pooja and the car was ready to start its life.









The Gas Guzzlers

[bottle]

On-Road Costs (approx.)

Ex-Showroom - 6,50,000
Lifetime Tax and Registration – 75,000
Extended Warranty – 7,200

This roughly brought it to 7.33 Lacs on road. VW had a bouquet offer where they offered AMC worth 24k, Insurance for 18k and accessories worth 15k which amounted to Rs.56k approx. out of which 40k would be paid by VW and I would have to shell out the balance 17k bringing the total OTR price to 7.5 Lacs. Other option would be to skip the bouquet offer and pay 7.33 Lacs OTR and get free insurance minus AMC and accessories but I chose the bouquet offer. They also had the breeze offer which seemed a bit pointless to me.

After delivery niggle? After delivery I had to sign some forms for the dealer to claim the costs for the bouquet offer Was surprised to see 2 forms, one for the accessories fitted for 15k as part of the bouquet offer and 2nd was for a 10k Cash discount from VW. I was surprised by the 2nd form since this was the first I was hearing about it. The salesman tried to dodge this saying that it would have been adjusted against the extended warranty and so on, which I had clearly paid for until finally he admitted that I would have to wait for a couple of weeks and after their internal auditing they might refund the excess amount. I will definitely be pursuing this.

[bottle]

Initial Impressions

At the time of this post I have done about 350kms and so far my observations are,

• Car is a April 2011 manufactured car, meaning its about 7 months old, no niggles noticed so far yet.
• NVH levels identical to TD car, a great place to be in with all the noise and bustle of traffic
• Very little body roll – You can take corners relatively fast without throwing the occupants around and car is very composed. I would say this is a good car for people who get car sick easily.
• Stock ICE is excellent and I don’t think anyone would need to look at aftermarket options in my opinion
• A negative for most car enthusiasts including myself: A lethargic engine. Throttle response is slow. I am not sure if this will improve after run in but the engine takes a while to respond to pedal input and needs you to work the gears. I tried a spirited run and it seemed to lose steam post 120kph. I won’t be exploring this at least till I complete the 1k km run in period.
  I'm not sure if it is some sort of deliberate programming in the ECU, it does make the car smoother for occupants and there are no sudden and unexpected jerks
• Brakes are adequate – not on/off and allows you to modulate
• Rear space as mentioned is cramped especially if you have tall people sitting up front. Surprisingly the Vento has about a 100mm longer wheelbase from what I checked and is a lot better place to be in. Wish they had carried that over to the Polo.
• Plenty of boot space
• A very hard hand rest on the driver door! Considering the door pads have soft to touch plastic a hard hand rest that gives me elbow pain is a bit of an oddity
• Miss the dead pedal
• I upgraded the stock Apollo Acceleres to 195/60 R15 C.Drives. Initially I found them worse off than the Acceleres. The ride was a bit jarring and bouncy. This was improved a bit by reducing the pressure from 32 to 29 psi.

[Rudra Sen]

Thread moved to Test-Drives & Initial Ownership Reports. Thanks for sharing.

[planet_rocker]

let me first congratulate you on the Polo 1.6. looks nice when compared to the other 1.6 parked in the back ground. Hope to see it on the track sometime soon.

Congrats once again. looking forward to more pics of the Cars.

PS: Love the Thread Title

[Pancham]

One word --Gorgeous. The car looks gorgeous in black. Hope you dont have a hard time maintaining the black beauty.

[volkman10]

Congrats on owning this hot 1.6 hatch. Having one myself am loving it everytime I driveE!

Wishing you happy ownership and miles of safe driving!

Cheers!

Suggestion: Get the title to reflect the ownership of a Polo!

[supremeBaleno]

Congrats, man !!! The Polo is one of the best looking hatches (if not the best) we have in the market now. And with the 1.6L engine, it should be sweet to drive too.

You are the true petrol-head - in this time of ever-increasing petrol prices, you not only add another petrol-car to your fleet, but buy the version with the stonker engine.

[Nikhilb2008]

I'm driving down this weekend. Keep the guest room ready and book a table at Lydies! I will drive down for your party!

[Crazy_Eddy]

Nice car. How is the ride quality compared to your Palio?

[speed kills]

You, sir have picked up the hottest hatch in the country. Period.
Looks amazing in Black too.

[Vince]

Nice!! Thanks for the review bottle.

*Adds it to list of cars i'm considering *

[petrol_head]

'Buddhi' Boy ! Congrats.
So when are we celebrating? And would it not be nice to put the two 1.6s together on the track? Driver available for the fiat

[xtremeshock]

Many congratulations to you bottle, I just love the way the polo looks in black.

Hope you have some mods in mind in the near future as this car seems to beg for it.

P.s. Have you noticed if the grip levels have increased after the C-drives? Comparing it to the test drive car.

[bottle]

Originally Posted by petrol_head

'Buddhi' Boy ! Congrats.
So when are we celebrating? And would it not be nice to put the two 1.6s together on the track? Driver available for the fiat

Anytime! I hear you walk out of places if they don't serve what you like??

Anyway I doubt this car will be going on track

Originally Posted by xtremeshock

Many congratulations to you bottle, I just love the way the polo looks in black.

Hope you have some mods in mind in the near future as this car seems to beg for it.

P.s. Have you noticed if the grip levels have increased after the C-drives? Comparing it to the test drive car.

I used the Acceleres for a few days before I switched to C drives. Can't really say I noticed all that difference in grip. Mostly was using it in city at speeds less than 80kph for most part and at this level the suspension covers handling and tyres are not yet playing their part IMO. It isn't like the Palio where you can easily make out if there is more grip or not in the tyres.

Will only know once I show it some open roads later.