A Duster and Ecosport owner went and checked out the Creta together today. Fellow mod Ampere who has a Duster and myself went to nearest dealership to have a dekho at the Creta. Both of us came away impressed and got back into our cars realising the game has moved on.
There was a huge rush at the showroom on a wednesday at 5PM! We were asked to wait for a 5 minutes test drive for half hour minimum for diesel. There was a queue for TD's! Surprisingly the petrol was idle and available immediately.
Here's our observations of the Creta after spending more than half an hour in the showroom:
Looks:
- It didn't look as big as we thought. Size is slightly smaller to Duster but the sharp lines hide it even further. On the road it didn't really look imposing.
- If you view the car from the side or look at the rear quarter from the front it sort of looks odd.
- As mentioned before, the white looks much better. The grey and darker colours hides the sharp lines and the black cladding which makes it even less imposing.
- Overall it looks very modern and don't think anyone can say it's quirky or odd like the Ecosport. It's stylish and contemporary like most Hyundai's.
- There's a plastic sump guard which covers the under body reasonably well.
- The 17" alloys look much better than the smaller 16" ones. 17" ones had Bridgestone rubber whereas the 16" was with Goodyear.
- Sheet metal overall felt decent. Not as solid as Ecosport but not as tinny as Duster. Much better than City but not upto the Ford, VW solid feel.
- The window line is quite high.
- Even the diesel did not have any insulation under the hood.
Interiors Front:
- This is the biggest USP. The interior quality is simply unmatched. Carrying over from the Elite i20, everything feels premium. Doors feel heavy and close with a solid feel. All 4 door entry points gets scuff plates. Even the SX had this not just the SX (O). This is missing in the Altis now!!
- Art Leather on top end felt really nice.
- Front seats are far more comfortable than the Ecosport. Better underthigh support and can fit larger frames. There's good range for the seat height adjust upwards but I would have preferred one more notch lower than the lowest setting. No lumbar adjust!
- Surprisingly no telescopic steering? Only tilt adjust. Was a bummer. Steering in top spec with leather felt really nice.
- Gear shift in SX was quite plain whereas SX(O) had nice leather, silver chrome combo.
- Overall dashboard has hard plastics. No soft touch anywhere but you can be fooled to thinking it is. It did not feel like cheap hard plastics like Duster and to an extent Ecosport.
- Door pads were not very deep but lots of storage space apart from bottle holder.
- There was door beading 2 layers plus a rubber beading on the frame. No cost cutting evident easily.
- The top end SX(O) has nice leather padding on the doors where you rest your arms. All variants below get absolutely no padding just hard plastic for your elbows.
- Sat-nav screen looked really good. quite big and doubles as reverse screen which is very handy.
- Overall visibility is not as good as Duster as per Ampere. I didn't mind it cause Ecosport is not great. Basically window line is very high to look out of.
Interiors Rear:
- Getting in and out is for some reason not that easy. Not due to height but the few times I tried my waist would hit the side of the seat.
- Rear space is quite generous in legroom. Way more space than Duster and Ecosport. 6 feet myself can sit behind with driver seat set for me.
- Rear seat width is the problem. Good for 2 but 3 will not be that comfortable. Duster is wider but Creta is more than Ecosport.
- Rear AC vents are useful. Had decent throw of air. you can adjust both vents individually up/down and left/right.
- Rear door pads are plain black no contrast at all unlike the front that had slight beige. The top end has leather on doors with padding but lower variants get nothing but hard cold plastic. sigh.
- Headroom is a non issue. Ample front and back.
- Rear shoulder line is very high. Rear passengers wont get a very airy feeling but i prefer this for privacy these days.
Boot:
- Boot capacity is awesome. Ecosport is not even worth mentioning.
- The loading height is very high. Can be a pain when lifting luggage. Noticed the exhaust can was taking up a lot of space below as a result the spare tyre sits in a less deep cavity thereby increasing the loading bay height.
- The removable floor to access the spare can be folded and stored in a groove so it stays in place when accessing the spare.
- Tools are stored neatly in foam tray inside spare wheel cavity.
- Saw a couple of baggage hooks present.
Drive:
We only got a very short drive of the 1.6L petrol since there was huge rush for diesel.
- NVH level in petrol is awesome. Ampere couldn't even figure out if engine was running or it was off.
- Clutch is not the lightest. For some reason the actuation point is very early on. Being used to petrol's and driven many cars, I didn't have too much of an issue but didn't like it this way. Ampere being used to Duster heavy clutch and diesel torque really struggled with this.
- Performance from the petrol is decent. Nothing to go wow over. The engine doesn't have a lot of low end grunt and needs some revs to get going. Once you start moving, mid range is decent. In comparison my 6 year old petrol Altis feels peppier.
- Gear shift is super smooth. One of the slickest out there.
- Steering is light but more weight than the Elite i20 and similar to my Ecosport.
- Low speed ride quality was very supple. Nowhere as jarring as my Ecosport.
- We got barely 5 minutes with the car so cannot comment on handling.
Overall we came away very impressed with the package. As I mentioned Hyundai is really charging big money for the Creta but you won't feel like anything is missed out if you spend 17 big ones for this.
In closing. If the Creta was available 2 years back, both Ampere and myself would be having a Creta in our garages than the Duster/Ecosport we currently have.
The Creta is 5.5 lakhs more than what I paid for the Ecosport in 2013. Currently the Creta is 4L more for top spec Ecosport.
If there was a top spec SX(O) AT, I may have been tempted to exchange with the Altis but not with the SX+ AT. I stand to lose too much.
Some pics:
