Hi all,
At the outset, please accept my apologies for the longish post. I will split my report into different threads
My test drive and buying experience
- Initial ownership report
- First service report
- Coimbatore - Bangalore Travelogue.
I have been hunting around for a car for a long time. I test drove the following cars before settling down on the i20 petrol
What did I expect from a car?
- Good leg room and space when going for long drives
- good enough pick up- I am not a fast driver, but enjoy cruising at a constant speed, with occasional overtaking. I am more than happy to leave way for those in a hurry. Even on an empty stretch in the city I stick to 60 and on the highways, I usually do 90km with the speedo touching 100-110 occasionally.
- good music system,Ipod support must,steering mounted controls would be nice to have. I mostly listen to carnatic classical (south Indian classical music). So amps etc., ICE upgrade not a priority.
- tyre upgrades- may be need to see.
- ABS and airbag- no compromise on this.
- I wanted to buy the car at Coimbatore because my parents would be using the car as well.
Honda Jazz - Good car to drive, feels easy to drive, well built etc., But the fear of Honda dropping the price by a third once I book the car put me off (Hybrid news- however illogical it may sound)
Fiat Grande Punto- was very close to booking this one, some reports on TBHP about the after sales service and rusted parts pic posted by a member dissuaded me from this one
Fiat Linea- Same as above
SX4 - Was the closest to book this one. Dad said this is not easy to park, I will leave the car with parents when I travel on work. So had to let go of this. I really liked this car, it was an excellent car to drive with more pick up than I need and had all the goodies that I wanted (ATCC, airbags etc,).
Diesel i20- This was released just before i booked my I20 petrol. I decided to stay away from this one
I did test drive the other suzuki hatches, and decided to stay away from them. So the decision to book i20 was an automatic one.
All of this was ok. The six week wait for the i20 would be painful, but since I knew someone at the Chennai Hyundai factory, there was a possibility of the car being delivered out of turn to me.
I decided to go for a 60% loan. I booked the i20 paying a deposit of 20k. It was easy to decide after a quick market survey that State Bank of India is the way to go. The bloke who was the sales agent turned out to be a student of my dad (Chem Prof at Govt arts college, Coimbatore). So he took additional interest in my loan processing. The loan was approved in just over a week's time, in the meanwhile, I was able to get a car delivered in about 2 weeks time at Chandra Hyundai(CH), Coimbatore- this included a delay induced by a change of mind when I changed colours from blue to grey (not silver

)
There were some hiccups with SBI insisting on a local account (in SBI) before they could disburse the loan. Once that was sorted, before the amount was paid to CH, i went to the showroom, armed with the PDI check list from Team BHP. The car had done 59km but I thought that was ok because they had to get the car from the Tirupur railhead- the numbers seemed to add up.
At this point, I should register my appreciation for the CH folks. They are a brilliant lot, very, very easy to handle, extremely professional and knew their way around most of the problems and questions that I would pose (thanks to T-BHP). They were spot on with their planning, did all that was required to make me comfortable with my new car and made my buying experience an enjoyable one.
They gave me free mats, mud flaps and an anti rust coating for the car. I got a reverse parking sensor installed . After a lot of debate with a friend of mine, I decided not to upgrade the stock tyres at the minute. I will however go for bigger wheels and better tyres in the future.
I did not have any problems while taking delivery of the car. The car has done about 1900km as of now in three weeks it has been with me, done bangalore- Coimbatore back and forth about twice,with one stretch passing unexpectedly through the 27 hairpin bends of the Dimbam ghat section (remember Veerappan?) . It is a breeze to drive around, very light steering, super clutch, super smooth and refined engine.
As said earlier, I will be posting the other threads soon..
Until then.. so long..
Many Thanks
Prasad