[Bubby]

In hatchback market and what better time to be in, 3 hot hatches getting launched within a span of few weeks.

Punto Evo
New Polo
Elite i20

My car runs 100+kms on daily basis, so it had to be a Diesel. Then began the round of Test Drives, my wife, 5year old son and my Father accompanied me for all the TDs, so the first in the que was Polo, followed by Evo and Elite.

I am sharing my brief experiences for all the Test Drives.

Polo

Called up VW and inquired about the test drive, booked the test drive for next afternoon, 02:00pm. Didn’t got any call from them till 03:30pm, called them back to check on the status of Test Drive. Following was the conversation :

Me : I booked a Test Drive for 02:00pm today and its 03:30pm now, can you please advise?
VW : Sir, with whom you spoke yesterday?
Me : I don’t remember
VW : Please give your number, I will arrange for a call back

I gave them my number and the conversation ended. After 10mins I got the call back, from the same sales representative with whom I had booked the Test Drive. Following is the conversation :

VW : Good afternoon Sir
Me : Good afternoon
VW : Sir, I am very sorry I completely forgot
Me : Can I speak with your manager
VW : Sir, I am sorry, I will reach in 30mins with the car
Me : How can you forget at first place?
VW : Sir, I am going through some challenges with my girlfriend, so I just forgot.

2mins of silence

Me : come no later than 04:30pm.
VW : Ok Sir

Conversation ended.

Well, he reached at sharp 04:25pm and offered me a longish (40+ kms) Test Drive, that bought a huge smile on my face.

I liked the fantastic engine and interiors, build quality and handling. I didn’t liked rear leg-room and NVH.

Here, I always wanted to go for the GT version, dealership said that the car will be launched in September and deliveries will start one week after the launch. I was ok to wait, so booked the car and now the wait started.

Punto Evo

While I was waiting for GT, Fiat launched Evo, called up Kashyap Fiat (Noida) to book the Test Drive, booked 90BHP Evo Sport for Test Drive for the next afternoon, now here again no follow-up from Kashyap Fiat happened and hence no Test Drive happened on the schedule. In this case I didn’t followed up, well I am a Palio user from past 6 years

After a week I got a follow-up from Kashyap, following was the conversation :

Fiat : Hello Sir, you booked a Test Drive for Punto
Me : Yes, but that was a week back
Fiat : Sorry Sir, we just had one TD car and it was occupied.
Me : Ok
Fiat : we can come for the TD in next 30mins
Me : Ok (I was in an Idle mode at work, so immediately agreed)

The car arrived, I asked for an 90BHP TD and they sent a 75BHP Active version for TD, such a huge turn-off was that. I went through the motions, took the TD, my colleague accompanied me for the TD, immediately after the TD his first words were, your 6 year old Palio with 120k kms on ODO looks and drives better. That statement from him summed the experience up.

Elite i20

A week later, Hyundai started taking bookings for Elite and after seeing pictures of exteriors and interiors on Elite Scoop thread, I couldn’t just give it a miss, was lucky enough to see it in flesh before the launch. I immediately booked it, as I knew if I would wait for launch and then for TD to book the car, the waiting period would go up.

Day after the launch, I went to the dealership to look at the car inside out. We all liked the car very much, looks and the space inside was in abundance, the interiors were very impressive.

I did the TD and Elite checked on almost all the boxes. I checked on my booking status with sales representative and he said I will get the car delivered by next week in the very first lot.

So now was the time to take the final decision, Evo was out of reckoning, it was now between Polo and Elite, dilemma was to either wait for a car which is yet to be launched (no set launch date) or to take delivery of the car which has been launched and will be available next week for us to drive home.

Polo or Elite…… Elite or Polo......

I for one was ok to wait for Polo, but everyone else in the house was against the idea and then came this one liner from my wife, “after living with a Time Bomb (FIAT) for 6 years, I don’t want to live my next 6 years with another Time Bomb (VW)”, needless to say, she is an avid TBHP reader.

I was having sleepless nights, after lot of discussions and speculations we locked upon practical Elite.

Next morning, I went to VW showroom and cancelled my booking against GT TDI, though it’s been more than 7 weeks, I am yet to receive the refund.

Dealership Experience (HMP, Mathura Road, New Delhi)

It was fantastic, I booked the car before the launch and was told that the Delivery will be within the two weeks of the launch and I indeed got the car within two weeks of the launch. At the time of booking, I checked with my sales adviser, if I can get the insurance done from outside, his prompt answer, yes Sir, you very well can.

I got no freebies nor was I expecting any as its a new launch, before the delivery I did got Mud-Flaps and Mats placed.

Finally, we got our Elite delivered on 25th August.



We already have a very in-depth 5 Star Official TBHP Review for Elite available to all of us, with all details and pictures, so I will keep this ‘Thread’ limited to my Ownership Experiences.

1st Service

Got my 1st service done at 1500kms, it went well, all the check-up’s and top-up’s were done, I was not charged anything. I was surprised to see a Samsung Galaxy Tabs with every service adviser, this was my first, no paper job-cards etc, they opened the job card on there tab and copy was mailed to me.

The next morning, I got a call from my dealership, stating that there has been a notice that has come there way from Hyundai, which states that Elites with specific VIN numbers have to be checked for some wire harnesses and for some under-body and engine bay checkup. I visited them in evening, they checked and did the needful, but this resulted in my keys getting reset. As during the visit I was carrying just one key, so they fixed it, but the spare key currently is useless, as it still has to be remapped to new codes.

I don’t intend to do any modifications for now or in future on the car, I like the cars in stock condition. Though, I have taken a 3M annual car care offering, which will give me 5 washes, 2 interiors, 4 body treatments. Putting up some pictures of the work being carried out at 3M.






Results, totally worth it :



I have driven my Elite close to 3600kms, all this has been in NCR, no Expressway trips yet.



With little driving experience of 600k kms, on various cars, terrains, in various countries, it will be fair to say that Elite makes me feel like an novice driver. Yes, it drives and behaves differently in different conditions and after owning it for an month, I now understand the sentiments of all those who come back from 5-10-15 mins TD and conclude capability of the car.





I will pick up each of the characteristics separately here :

Build Quality (Exterior/Interior)

The car is just a month old and nothing much has changed yet on this front, I will like to review this on a later stage of ownership.

In brief, there are no rattles yet from anywhere, the seats are comfortable and the rear bench can easily accommodate 3 medium sized adults. Leg room, head room, shoulder room are in abundance for me and my folks. I am 6'0" and with driver seat adjusted to my driving position, I could easily accommodate myself at rear without rubbing my knees with the front seat, though in an upright seating position the side of my head was brushing with the roof.

PS : Though we have rake and reach steering unit, height adjustable driving seat, I am still struggling to find that perfect position. Am I missing some trick here?

Steering

I was frightened to hell, with all the pre-load that I had about Hyundai steering’s from TBHP. Well, I have not driven any other Hyundai, so I cannot compare the Elite’s steering with previous versions of i20 or of current Verna’s. But this steering weighs up very well with the increase in speed, you have to take it to those speeds to believe me and this is coming from an extensive Palio user.

Stability

I haven’t ripped it as yet, where stability comes into question, however with speeds a little over a ton the car is well planted and inspires confidence. I have 33 PSIs in all four wheels, irrespective of varying load. When the car was delivered to me it had 43 PSIs in all wheels, not sure why.

Engine

WOW. It’s absolutely silent for a Diesel, having a silent engine can have drawbacks, I learned this with Elite. As the engine noise is so less, you have to be dependent on your RPM needle for up-shifts and down-shifts. Though I am sure, with some more kms on Elite, I will learn to shift without looking at RPM needle.

Just an observation, I can pull easily in the 3rd in Bumper to Bumper traffic with 2 adults with 4 adults I had to shift into 2nd or maybe I am still learning engine behavior.

On open roads car pulls away the best in 4th and 6th. I am getting use to the 6th, currently I shift into 6th at 70kmph and from there on I can pull it pretty effortlessly, in 6th at little over 2k rpm you are doing 110kmph.

The engine braking that Elite offers is very negligible, it could had been better.

Brakes

Again, with the kind of speeds that I have driven in this initial ownership, I found brake performance very satisfactory.

In one emergency scenario, I had no other option but to come to halt from a ton and the car stopped gorgeously in straight line.

Gear Box

Silky smooth gear changes, no fuss here.

Only once, I struggled to engage into 1st, the reason was, I wasn't letting the reverse gear to end completely.

Fuel Efficiency

I have done 3 tank fulls, the first 2 tanks gave me a FE of 18.01kmpl, the 3rd tank gave me 18.22kmpl. All these figures are driving on NCR roads, I am sure highways figures will be a dash better. The FE is calculated by tank full method, with 100% AC on.

MID

There is not much to play around, very limited options, I don’t like it a bit.



Audio

I am a complete neophyte here, so I am mighty impressed with the sound quality, the stock speakers are more treble friendly, though they produce decent bass if you play around with some settings. There is separate provision for AUX and USB, I do miss a remote control.




Bluetooth Connectivity

Music playback happens seamlessly from any device, be it Android, iOS or Blackberry.

You can receive and make calls, though you can have last 30 entries from call log on the system, you cannot scroll through them using steering controls, so I find the system to be more call receiving friendly then call making. To make a call, you have to either reach out to your phone or you have to manually scroll using knobs on the main unit.



AC

It’s a bliss, with 40+ degree C, the car chills in now time and the rear AC unit keeps my son happy in his car seat, with lesser glass area the cabin doesn’t heat up much.



Headlights

Worse. They are bad, the throw as well as the brightness. Even after adjusting the headlight leveler to '0' and asking SA during first service to raise the throw with some adjustments if possible. It still stays miserable

Boot/Boot Lamp

The space is very generous for a hatchback, 40:60 split of Asta is an added advantage here.

Boot Lamp only works when the car is in ignition mode, that's frustrating, if you have parked your car in the dark and you are returning to your car with shopping bags etc., you open the boot door and the lamp wouldn't turn on. IMHO they should have linked this lamp to car lock-unlock function.

Seats

As I said above, passengers find the seats very comfortable with ample leg-room for everyone. I also got genuine leather seat covers done, post seat covers the center arm rest has started to rub against back rests.







Cheer up guys, just 2 more mins to end of the post Rear View Mirrors

Worse......!!! Its all confusing, with the three sets of rear view mirrors. I am dud with optics etc., but I feel there is something wrong, something wrong with cylinders of these mirrors. The Concave one inside the cabin and the Convex ones at the outside confuse you a lot. I have driven different cars with such set-up of mirrors, but I have never felt such less confident in the past. I am not always sure of the car coming behind, I am not sure if it has gone pass by rear bumper or not.

Thank you for all your time and patience.

I will keep this thread updated with the latest happenings. Keep Revving……!!!

LIVE TO DRIVE

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Initial Ownership Section. Thanks for sharing!

[Amarendranath]

Hearty congratulations buddy! Wishing you miles of safe and niggle free owner ship. The color red just looking stunning on this car.

I'm still under dilemma in what shall be replacing my santro. Have eyes on the elite and the Polo.

[Bubby]

Originally Posted by Amarendranath

Hearty congratulations buddy! Wishing you miles of safe and niggle free owner ship. The color red just looking stunning on this car.

I'm still under dilemma in what shall be replacing my santro. Have eyes on the elite and the Polo.

Thanks mate.

I also had the similar dilemma between Polo and Elite, I bought Elite for a hopefully peaceful Long-Term Ownership, if not for the horror VWASS stories, I would have definitely bought a GT TDI.

[guyfrmblr]

Congratulations. The car looks hot. Wish you many more happy and safe miles with the car.

Originally Posted by Bubby

My car runs 100+kms on daily basis, so it had to be a Diesel.

I have been driving 85 kms daily in my i20 CRDi from past 3.5 years and it has never let me down anytime. The engine still feels new after clocking 1L+ kms. The CRDi engine is such a gem. Enjoy the car .

[mezereo]

Congratulations mate !

Lovely shade and liked your swift review on different aspects of the car. We are trying to replace our 6 year old Spark and have almost zeroed in on the new Elite i20 CRDi. Will lookout for more updates from you.

Also, did you feel the need to be more careful while reversing the car and are you going to do anything about the mirrors as you say you are not completely confident of whats going around. How about the tyres, any upgrades necessary ?

thanks,

[DRIVE_ADDICT]

Congrats on the new car. Wishing you many happy miles on it. I for one really liked the looks of Elite i20. Nice to know an ex-Palio owner gives +ve feedback on Elite's Steering, this is the most concerning factor for people like me.

And you got a very nice seat cover. Please provide the details about cost and where about on the install.

I recently had a look on Elite i20 and i found the rear seat head room and high shoulder line on rear door gives a claustrophobic feel for the rear passenger, this is the only concern i felt about the Elite i20.

[Bubby]

Originally Posted by guyfrmblr

I have been driving 85 kms daily in my i20 CRDi from past 3.5 years and it has never let me down anytime. The engine still feels new after clocking 1L+ kms. The CRDi engine is such a gem. Enjoy the car .

Thanks buddy.

Your ownership review has given me a lot of comfort and has been one of the deciding factors for me to go ahead with Elite.

Originally Posted by mezereo

Also, did you feel the need to be more careful while reversing the car and are you going to do anything about the mirrors as you say you are not completely confident of whats going around. How about the tyres, any upgrades necessary ?

Thanks mate.

Reversing the car is not at all an issue, combination of rear camera and sensors work flawlessly. Elite has adaptive guidelines which turn in the direction the car will steer, reversing camera display is neatly integrated on the left of the IRVM

Thankfully, at most times I can reverse without even looking into mirrors for guidance. I am pretty sure that I can't do much about mirrors, so I have to live with it, may be after sometime I will get used to them.

[JoseVijay]

Originally Posted by Bubby

Headlights

Worse. They are bad, the throw as well as the brightness. Even after adjusting the headlight leveler to '0' and asking SA during first service to raise the throw with some adjustments if possible. It still stays miserable

Congratulations on the new car. Enjoyed reading through the review. Why don't you upgrade the OE headlights?

[fusionbang]

Originally Posted by Bubby

I was frightened to hell, with all the pre-load that I had about Hyundai steering’s from TBHP. Well, I have not driven any other Hyundai, so I cannot compare the Elite’s steering with previous versions of i20 or of current Verna’s. But this steering weighs up very well with the increase in speed, you have to take it to those speeds to believe me and this is coming from an extensive Palio user.

Hearty Congratulations Bubby You have acquired one of the best looking hatchbacks in the Indian Market. Happy driving and drive safe!!

I have a quick question on the steering, as you mentioned does the steering really weigh as the speed increases? because many owners have mentioned against it. Have you done any quick overtaking maneuver on highways? If yes, how did the car behave?

[tilt]

Bubby, nice review. I own the immediate previous incarnation of the i20 CRDi Asta that does not have the adaptive guidelines in the reverse camera; but I am not entirely unhappy with the car so far; except that my fuel consumption is around the 13 kmpl mark. I did manage to touch 18 once and 15 once, but it has been 13.x every other time.

Re. the rear-view mirrors, the interior one is not concave, it is flat. The exteriors are convex of course.

The one point I find odd is that in India, both, the driver mirror and passenger mirror are convex; while everywhere else, the driver mirror is flat (like the interior mirror) and only the passenger mirror is convex (with the text "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear").

Cheers

[Bubby]

Originally Posted by mezereo

How about the tyres, any upgrades necessary ?

Asta Elite's come with either Bridgestones or Apollos, mine came with Apollo. I plan to continue with them, as I have no complaints so far with them.

I will continue to keep the car in stock condition, so no upgrades, no DIYs are on there way.

Originally Posted by DRIVE_ADDICT

Congrats on the new car. Wishing you many happy miles on it. I for one really liked the looks of Elite i20. Nice to know an ex-Palio owner gives +ve feedback on Elite's Steering, this is the most concerning factor for people like me.

And you got a very nice seat cover. Please provide the details about cost and where about on the install.

I recently had a look on Elite i20 and i found the rear seat head room and high shoulder line on rear door gives a claustrophobic feel for the rear passenger, this is the only concern i felt about the Elite i20.

Thanks mate.

I got the seat covers done form AUTOFORM and they charged me 32k for the same.

The high shoulder line has its own advantages and dis-advantages.

Originally Posted by JoseVijay

Congratulations on the new car. Enjoyed reading through the review. Why don't you upgrade the OE headlights?

Thanks buddy.

I am very skeptical about any sort of upgrades, even if its as small as an OE Headlight upgrade. I feel these days the cars are build to perform only in stock conditions. The electronics, wires etc. are optimized in such a way to control the cost, that they are just about sufficient enough to run the stock stuff.

I also say this, as I see so many cars on fire these days and on most occasions the fires are caused due electrical short circuits, a dear friend had his Captiva on fire a few days back.

Now having said that, with all due respect to the DIY Guru's, above is just IMHO.

Originally Posted by fusionbang

Hearty Congratulations Bubby You have acquired one of the best looking hatchbacks in the Indian Market. Happy driving and drive safe!!

I have a quick question on the steering, as you mentioned does the steering really weigh as the speed increases? because many owners have mentioned against it. Have you done any quick overtaking maneuver on highways? If yes, how did the car behave?

This is the very first Hyundai that I have driven, so I can't compare the steering with previous versions.

Steering, well as I mentioned in my review it weighs up really well and is confidence inspiring, though it took me some 2k kms to adapt myself to it, as I was coming fresh from a Palio which I had driven close to 120k.

Steering behavior depends a lot on what PSIs you have in the rubber and what kind of load you have in the car for those PSIs. At the time of delivery I had 44 PSIs in all 4 wheels and I drove for atleast 1 week with that and in that 1 week all horror stories that I read about Hyundai steering's flash backed.

When I went for air check, I asked him to keep 33 PSI in all 4 wheels and now as soon as I engaged the car in 1st gear, I was like what the hell just happened, I could immediately feel difference even at crawling city speeds, forget about high speeds.

Though I haven't done a hair raising overtaking maneuver yet, however having said that, I have done a couple of smooth ones at 12x10 kmph and the car felt planted and I didn't had to correct the steering even once.

Originally Posted by tilt

Bubby, nice review. I own the immediate previous incarnation of the i20 CRDi Asta that does not have the adaptive guidelines in the reverse camera; but I am not entirely unhappy with the car so far; except that my fuel consumption is around the 13 kmpl mark. I did manage to touch 18 once and 15 once, but it has been 13.x every other time.

Re. the rear-view mirrors, the interior one is not concave, it is flat. The exteriors are convex of course.

The one point I find odd is that in India, both, the driver mirror and passenger mirror are convex; while everywhere else, the driver mirror is flat (like the interior mirror) and only the passenger mirror is convex (with the text "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear").

Cheers

Thanks buddy.

Those FE figures are nothing to write home about, but when one can spent a 1 Lakh for a Cup holder, those FE figures shouldn't be bothering you much

I have driven 3.9k kms till now and all tank fulls have returned me an FE of 18+ kmpl, this is with light foot and I have been doing up-shifts around 2k rpm mark.

The issue with rear view mirrors, I just cannot see the rear corner of the car and that doesn't help when you have to do lane changes.

Cheers.

[veyron_head]

Thats a great looking car you got there bubby. Looks smashing in Red.

A quick question, Does the MID come with DTE or FUel efficiency calculator, cudn't figure from the pics.

Congrats again and drive safe!!

[puchoo]

Many many congratulations!!!

Your spare key incident is the same as me , when i got the ECU changed in the Fabia i only had one key and the other one was home and is still lying without much use.

Love the color and like the seat covers as well , they look to be of good quality and blend in well with the interiors.

From the photo's appears you might have gone to 3M in East of Kailash?

[Bubby]

Originally Posted by veyron_head

Thats a great looking car you got there bubby. Looks smashing in Red.

A quick question, Does the MID come with DTE or FUel efficiency calculator, cudn't figure from the pics.

Congrats again and drive safe!!

Thanks mate.

The MID, I will call it the Minimum Information Display in Elite, doesn't display any fuel related calculations.

There are 3 different modes, out of which 2 are just Trip Meters, which comprise of Outside Temperature, Average Speed, kms done, Engine Run Time (hours engine has been operational since last reset), you can reset all these whenever you want to, in addition it shows overall kms done. The 3rd mode is nothing but a Digital Speed indicator.

Also, every time you turn off the engine, MID shows your Trip Summary on the above mentioned parameters.

Originally Posted by puchoo

Many many congratulations!!!

Your spare key incident is the same as me , when i got the ECU changed in the Fabia i only had one key and the other one was home and is still lying without much use.

Love the color and like the seat covers as well , they look to be of good quality and blend in well with the interiors.

From the photo's appears you might have gone to 3M in East of Kailash?

Thanks mate.

I have to get the other key fob fixed as soon as possible, if in any circumstance I loose the existing one or it stops functioning, I will get stranded. Only way out then will be, HASS will have to carry the G-Scan onsite to activate the spare fob.

Yes that's indeed 3M in East of Kailash.