Team-BHP - Chevrolet Aveo 2009 Test driven

Hi Guys,
This is my second thread of the cars I am going to test drive and this time it is Chevrolet Aveo 2009. Everyday whenever I read Times of India an advertisement used to scream at me " Chevrolet Aveo @ 5.49 Lakh". So finally decided to see whether the car was worth the advertisement atleast. Reached the SC Auto Showroom in Thane which is actually owned by the Modi's who also own the Hyundai dealership. Had fixed an appointment for test drive a day earlier and was hoping the car would be ready for the same. Was interested in 1.4LT ABS model. Was met warmly by sales co-ord Shashank who showed me the model in the showroom & took time to explain the features. Here are my observations

Exterior: Smooth finish lines, nice looking Chrome grill with + logo. Rear spoiler, good boot space, Great gnd clearance, Front Fog lamps, Nice looking headlights, rear defogger coupled with rear printed antenna (that was new to me), Alloy wheels, Electric OVRM's. Class, No frills contours, hard to forget car feeling.
Interior: Good dash with dual tone interiors although the wood apptern was not that appealing, Manual seat height adjustment,Tilt steering with leather finish and leather gear knob, 2 Din Mp3 player with 6 speakers. Instrument cluster with chrome was not to my liking. Upholstery was leather, colour & feel not so good. Rear arm rest was nice. Only driver Airbag was available.
Now for the test drive. As usual I asked my wife to sit at the back to review the rear handling. Started the engine, found engine to be very silent, could not make it out whether the engine was running. Moved out of car to confirm still found no engine noise, super silent. The test vehicle had done just 930 kms and was relatively new for test drive. Now it was time to move on. Again found the turn indicators to the left of the steering and the washers to the right as I had done in Ford test drive. But this time I was prepared. Took off on the busy Ghodbunder Road, nice accelaration, touched 80 KMPL in 15-20 secs. The gear throw was not very smooth, found a bit hard. Also the reverse lock was hindering my full grip on the knob, very irritating. :FrustratiHad to adjust the gear on couple of occasions. The accelaration was smooth, steering was repsonsive. Found a lot of stares at the signal, dont know whether it was for me driving or for the car. Took the car to a stretch notorious for potholes, speed breakers. Nice handling, even wife complemented on the rear ride was smooth over the potholes, good feel, a little body roll but that was OK. Came back on the highway and on the return to showroom applied sudden brakes, found braking to be superb, car came to a stand still within no time. Checked the reverse parking and found a good view of the back. Overall the test drive experince was good, felt really nice about the car. Was confident the car would perform well on the highways too.

The OTR for 1.4 LTABS was 813567/- Thane w/octroi for which dealer offered me 58K as flat discount for the ongoing period with the usual freebies of mud flaps, floor & dicky mats. They offered me to buy back my Santro but the price quote was too low for my expectations. Have to really think about that. Also the insurance quote was inflated atleast by 10K.
:deadhorse

Asked the sales co-ord regarding the 5.49 L price tag and was told it was the cost of the base model with 48K discount and ex-Thane outside octroi limits. So you dont always have to go by the ad gimmick. The actual scene is something else. The test drive feeling is still lingering in my mind even when I am writing this review. I hope the review was useful and would request BHPians to give their valuable feedback.

Just crossed my mind as there is check list for PDI should there be one for test drive, maybe some senior BHPians can take a lead and pen a few words, will definetly be useful for first time buyers, novices or maybe existing people who normally would start to compare their car with the test driven car and lose out on a genuine good cars.