A little bit about my experience with this car so far:
A Rose by any other Name
I would love to tell you that there is a fantastic story about the name, but there isn't. I am very fond of Indian/Hindustani names (mostly female names) and the depth of meaning. Nearly everything I own has a name, much to the amusement of people who deal with me. Ritu is the term for a season in Sanskrit, and this is pretty much my love for all seasons.
The Drive
So I have clocked about 3000 kms in 35 days and a bit. I don't have a regular commute but use the car to go everywhere I go. Most of that is in South Bombay, with the occasional trip to I actually want to get the car to a setup of my linking, before I completely describe it. But, here are my first observations:
1. The suspension is quieter but still as taught as the previous Polo. As a general everyday car, I have grown accustomed to being careful with potholes, unless I can glide over without the body bobbing. In last 300 kms I have been using the yoke-s-drives and although there is some "feedback" from the road, the ride quality remains good to fairly awesome. Will be considering an upgrade to the shocks and springs soon. Teine and Bilsteins are being explored...
2. The brakes are bad to worse at medium speeds. The bite is spongy between 15-30 km/hr. At higher speeds the response does not feel linear, until the pedal goes down further. Will be upgrading to rear discs and possibly better pads soon. Brembo or Tarroxes, depending on the budget.
3. Lights are significantly improved over the previous polo and substantial step up over the Swift that I owned. I was little surprised to see the reversing lights on only one side, but that seems to be a European standard! Have a GTI OEM headlamp upgrade, but that is low on the priority list now.
4. Steering feels quite supple for the city drives, but would have liked a little more feedback and firmness at higher speed; but that is only because I am nitpicking.
5. ICE, interiors and other such things are good but have been better. The build quality has dropped a little, so I can hear the odd noise inside, but still way better than the other options I have seen. I love the new steering mounted controls as well as the white tone MID. An upgrade is planned for the ICE unit, but Carplay/OPS and a hi-res screen are little hard to come by so will wait till next year. The extra lights in the footwell, the black interiors are all right the way I wanted them. Have got the OEM arm rest, but not installed it yet. Will do with Stanley seats sometime before winter is out. The legroom is a little limited for the driver and a little bit of a problem for very tall friends at the back. But in general very comfortable. The automatic air conditioning has served fantastically well, even on hot days, although the blower fan is very noisy above a 50% setting.
6. The FE is at about 12-13 overall. I keep a very detailed track and I find that driving the car spiritedly actually improves the FE; but I might be telling myself that! I have gone all Speed 97, and I don't even want to know what the car feels like on the 91RON. In my Mumbai city runs, I have seen as low as 5-6 kmpl when the traffic crawls. Mumbai Pune, with heavy traffic gets me 15 kmpl on a spirited run. A recent trip to Nashik on the new shoes saw a whopping 17.6 kmpl.
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My Fuel Score So Far
7. Gearbox is unbelievably good 95% of the time. There is a mutual learning curve, of throttle versus gearbox response, and it is like learning to drink beer! Once that is past, it just puts you where you want to to be. The problem is with the down shifting which is not as responsive as I like it - whenever I open the throttle, the box just hesitates a second before shifting down. However I imagine this will be a much more civil union in the S mode, which I have not tested extensively, because of a lack of faith in the brakes and the suspension.
Having said that other than the few times you are cruising and put your foot down to pull away, the car is smooth, crisp and eager.
That is the objective list, but the real picture is hard to paint in words. The car is an _absolute_ joy to own and more importantly drive. The car just darts whichever way you point it. You do feel special sitting at the wheel. I hate handing the keys to a valet. I head out for a drive on the freeway when most people would make do with a coffee. I don't have another car, and doubt I'd ever use one if I did. I like that it is a bit understated, so that I can tell people that the good cars are the ones with the bits under the hood.