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-   -   Maruti A-Star review + test Drive (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/49295-maruti-star-review-test-drive-9.html)

TDs depend a lot on the particular car that is being driven, more than the model or the make or the specs.
I remember TDing the Swift D and thinking- this is nothing like I read in the mags, or on TBHP- but I still went for the car, trusting the almost unanimous 3rd party opinions and the spec sheet. Never regretted it.

Similarly- I drove the i10 1.1 a few months ago, and was terribly disappointed-but I'm willing to accept that the particular piece I TDed was not anywhere near 100% in performance.

4.7 on road with airbags and ABS in a city runabout with good FE looks like a winner. A similar spec i10 costs almost 50k more. in the price conscious hatch segment, that is a lot of dough!

Any 0-100,braking and roll on timings available yet?
110kmph at 3500rpm sounds very promising (for a tiny petrol hatch)

For almost 4 months I was waiting for the launch of A-Star so that I could buy it and today I went to see it live at a SR here in Chandigarh.
Please Note: Many would like the car and many would not, the comments posted here are purely mine.

A-Star lovers should not feel let down.

Here are my comments:

· The looks from outside are good if the headlights are ignored.
· Door opening and closing sound is excellent.
· Leg room is less, or I should say too less.
· The quality of the Plastic used in the car is not up to the mark. I think the quality of plastic for export lot would be way far better then this one.
· Space in the rare seat was very less; a tall person of around 6 would have lot of problem sitting in the rare seat of the A-Star.
· Roof height is also very low, which means when the car moves over the bad roads, head would bag with the roof if you are anything above 5.8-6 tall.
· There is very less space in the Dickey, which means you cannot carry big bags with you - Space in a Alto or even 800 Dickey is more then that of a A-Star.
· Quality of the Dashboard Plastic looked way far behind of i10 or even Spark.
· Till i saw the car live today, I was in love with the A-Star and was going to buy it, but after seeing it today I am out of the Race for the A-Star.
· I don’t own a i10 or a Spark, but I have taken TD of both cars and would recommend going for a Spark LT or a i10 over A-Star.


I think my waiting for A-Star was of no use. It is not a family car (If you are a 2-3 people family then ok). This car is purely a city car.

Now I have 2 cars in my final list and I need BHP guy’s advice on which one to go for.
Please advice me as I need to book any one of them ASAP. My daily run would be around 50-70 km and on weekends would be above 100 km

Now I have 2 cars in my list and I need BHP guy’s advice on which one to go for.

The cars which i have short listed are:

i10 Magna = Price = 405970 less 13k(discount)= 392970 (Ex SR Chandigarh)
Swift LDI = Price = 487016 (Ex SR Chandigarh) (No discount on it and waiting period is around 3 months now).

Checked out the A-STAR twice today.

Here are the points I really liked

1. 5,00,000 gets you alloy wheels, ABS, power windows, factory stereo, air bags, etc.
2. The front is high and that increases safety in case there is a head on collision
3. The dash board is high, gives the feeling of being in a SUV
4. The build is solid
5. The styling is very eye catchy, especially the grill part

The journalists seem to be in love with the car. Saw the car in Red on some channel and it looked awesome. With the 19km/l claim maruti is making i guess they have another winner.

Pricing i think is slightly on the higher side. This is supposed to be an Alto replacement and Maruti has priced it in the WagonR category probably becaise it wants to price the Splash higher than that while retaining the Alto in India.

But all together Maruti knows the indian mindset and we sure have a winner here.

Yes – looks like it doesn’t meet the enthusiast’s requirements, but does meet the requirements of the public at large. So it will certainly sell. But the real point to be seen is if will be selling by cannibalizing sales of other Maruti models or will it be able to win over customers from other manufactures – time will tell.

That is a paper figure based on ARAI tests.

I have searched the net for the ARAI test conditions and also been on their website but could find no info.

Can anyone enlighten us on what the test conditions and percentage of city to highway in the tests?

I hope its not like those bike tests that return 120 kmpl or the Fiesta diesel drive that gave 40kmpl or something.

Check out this Astar Video people.

YouTube - Maruti A-Star Spotted On Road - - HaLaKu

I wonder why no one is comparing the A-Star (w.r.t performance) with other maruti models like wagonR/wagonR Duo and estillo and hyundai Santro.
That should give prospective buyers as idea of how good or bad A-Star is performance wise, since most people, atleast ones in the market for small hatch, must have already driven one of these.

I went and had a look at A-Star yesterday at Pratham Motors, Bangalore. They had a red Vxi on display. The car looks good in bright colors and the rear seat is more comfortable than an Alto. When I sat inside, what first struck me was the height of the dashboard. The stereo is almost on lime with your eyes when you are seated in the driver's seat.The top of the dashboard is in line with the top of the steering. Could not check out more as the salesperson was not at all interested in showing anything.

On another note, people should be very careful when dealing with Pratham Motors! The feeling that I got when I went to the showroom was that they are not interested in selling cars! A brief conversation with the salesman went as follows:

Me: Can I see how the dashboard looks with the lights on?
Salesman: We dont have the key sir, since if we put the key, everyone will start honking by mistake

Me: (holding the bonnet above) Where is the holding rod for the bonnet?
Salesman: (He didnt know hoe to fix it) It is bent sir, some customers closed the bonnet with the rod outside and it got bent! You cant fix it to hold the bonnet up

Me: When will deliveries be possible?
Salesman: Only after 7 months sir!

Me: Why??
Salesman:Thats the waiting period we have sir

Me: What is the waiting period for Swift Diesel?
Salesman:7 months sir, actually we are not taking bookings for Swift Diesel sir!!!

Me: What about Dezire?
Salesman:7 months sir!!!

Me: Can I have a test drive?
Salesman: Sorry sir, we have only one vehicle and it is a display vehicle!

I have never been to a showroom where the response was this poor! It felt as if they had a nice racket going on utilising the booking deposits for 7 months without interest to fund their operations! I know that showrooms in Hyderabad are quoting that deliveries will be completed within 1 month at the latest!

Even i had a similar experience with Pratham. Their response towards propspective customers is pathetic. They give you an impression that they are doing you a favor by selling their cars.

Went to take a look at the A-Star yesterday and came away with mixed feelings.

Exterior
******
- The car looks much better in the flesh than in pictures. Especially the hatch section which looks horrible in pictures but manages to redeem itself when you are face to face with the car.
- The front grill with the bar in the middle gives it a slightly macho look but I'd have prefered a grill all the way down to the bottom:)

Interiors
*******
- Maruti seems to have positioned the car as a city runabout for shopping trips and such and it shows.
- The alto had much better legspace and headroom at the back especially with a tall driver at the front.
- The boot space is good for shoppng and thats about it. An overnight bag or two is the capacity. Fitting anything larger than those cabin bags is gonna be a tough ask.
- Plastics seems to have improved. The two tone dash looks good and the lighter toned portion has a good soft feel. The darker section had some fit and finish issues especially around the central console.
- The central AC vents could be better finished as well.
- The dashboard is high and you cannot see much of the bonnet from the drivers seat.
- The glovebox is just that. It'll not fit much more than your gloves!! Same problem in the Swift. The storage space above this is good for your mobiles pens etc but I think Maruti should convert the top of the dash into a glovebox in models that do not have airbags.
- Tyres look adequate but more about this in a test drive later.

Drive on,
Shibu

Have I missed something... whats so promising about 110 kph @ 3500 rpm. IMHO its a bit too high.

This means that papu ko math nahin aata...

If at 110kmph it is showing 3500rpm's at a typical petrol engine redline of 6000rpm's it can do 190kmph in absence of any further wind resistance. Read thru and he also mentions getting up to ~150kmph

The waiting periods for the A-STAR are crazy. The agents are quoting a delivery time of February if you book now! Basic marketing tells you that when a customer walks into a store, then he has to have the product on the shelf. Don't know why MARUTI released the car so soon (unless its a cheap marketing gimmick to swallow all buyers between now and February, the actual launch date) if they don't have enough inventory of cars to satisfy initial demand.

The cheapest car is 4 lakhs, and this is introductory pricing. Imagine what real pricing would be, come February

sudev has already said it, but still- most of the small suzukis start making useful torque only after 3000-3500, so there is another 2000 or so rpm left for speed freaks to play with.