It was about 2 months back that I suddenly realized that my IKON was getting 5 years old and is time to replace it. The IKON was a lovely car that served my purpose well and it was really sad to let it go but since it was on company lease for me, I had very little option, else would be losing out much on tax implications.(
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...e-my-ikon.html) And the hunt for a perfect upgrade began - budget was a bit open and flexible; but the criteria were clear.
- I am the one in drivers seat so the driving pleasure matters most.
- Adaptable for daily Bangalore traffic rides as well occasional highway trips
- Reasonably powerful engine but more marks for responsiveness and handling
- Ground Clearance matters a lot I hate those ground hugging ones especially when one wants to take differently on some patchy roads (city or countryside!)
- Boot space IKON used to get filled for long trips; so no compromise on that
- Turning radius is very important along with a comfortable steering that is the one that gives you ultimate agility on the roads of today (& tomorrow)
- FE is important; but not an ultimate decider for my 10-12K km per year runs
- No compromise on safety ABS, EBD, airbags, crumble zones etc. gets high marks
- Like some of those ffancy eatures in top end variants but some compromise acceptable
- Above are all my criteria but then it had to be comfortable for my family of 4 so their feedback after a TD matters.
- And some weightage for looks and interiors after all they are the visible signs of your signature.
Just a month to go to get the new car; it was a pretty tight timeline to decide with all the above criteria and an otherwise busy schedules. Did a quick comparison of all the options by checking thru specs - mainly around engine specs, GC, Boot, turning, features etc on official and unofficial websites WOW!.. Checked some user reviews to confirm on some of the points. WOW again!!... But the real proof is in checking it out and the mission started with 3 or 4 test drives every weekend. And thus started the What Car? search. Sedan or SUV? Family ruled out the latter. Petrol or Diesel? No real cost advantage for my usage level with diesel, so the rest of criteria matters.
Test drives and dealer visits covered a wide spectrum SX4 ZXi, Verna Xxi ABS & CRDi ABS, Fiesta Sxi & S, Magnum LT & TCDi, Corolla H2/H5, City VTEC, Civic MT&AT and the CEDIA. The SX4 was great on the boot, GC, steering and features, it was poor on interiors and very importantly in turning radius. Verna was a compromise on boot and safety and even space, Fiesta lacked the experience (
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ectations.html), Magnum scored low on driving pleasure and turning. Corolla was great, but the model change looming; Civic was riding on hype but poor on GC, boot and turning and so on. Each one is a long story by itself and all had its share of merits too to cut the story short Head and heart, the clear winner for me was the CEDIA. The test drive was the most pleasurable and it matched all of my criteria.
This is at a time when many of the peers were blindly going for the Civic or waiting for the Altis. I could have done the same, but chose to be different from the herd. Next came the final choice on variant and color after a bit of conflict, head gave way to the heart if it had to be different, if it had to be stunning, elegant and yet majestic, the Belle Beast had to be CEDIA SPORTS Yellow!
It has been exactly a month for me now with this head turner. The story of how I managed to get the last available piece, the dealership experience, first 30 days/800km run and first service each is an experience by itself each has been great and it has stirred up lot of conversations. To keep this post short, will try to cover some of these later.