Finally, after a loooong wait of 2.5 months, we got the A-Star AT on 8-Dec-2010. Got a chance to drive the car last weekend and hence this initial ownership report.
Where it all started :
After owning an Amby in the early seventies, my FIL was mostly happy with 2-wheelers. Or atleast he tried to pretend happy. For years, I would hear him discussing various cars that he thought he liked and which he would like to buy. He moved from Santro to Spark to Alto to any new car that was the flavour of the season.
But it was only recently that he became more serious and then we tried to narrow down the options. They wanted only a hatch. And preferably one that had easy ingress/egress. That's how the Alto went out and the Estilo came in. It helped that the Estilo had some good deals on it.
The Search :
We TD-ed the Estilo, Spark and Beat. I know the Spark is a good car, but somehow the TD left us unimpressed - maybe because of the TD car being old/dirty. The Beat was SIL's instant choice and I liked the way it drove, but we wondered if such a 'funky' car would be good for him. The Estilo is no looker, but with the K-series engine and discounts, it became our choice. We booked the Estilo Vxi on 31-Aug-2010.
Around that time the Alto-K10 was launched and I did a TD and loved the way it drove. In-laws did not like the looks and that was that. We were told that the Estilo would be with us in 3-weeks - every other color than the Black colour we wanted, was available ex-stock. Inspite of my telling them how much of a pain it is to maintain a black car, they wanted it in black. But then they have a covered garage and the car will mostly stay parked - their usage is low.
Meanwhile, FIL decided to brush up on his rusty driving skills at the nearby driving school. One day SIL accompanied him and on their return she mentioned that while he had no issues with steering control, gear-changes seemed to be an issue. Meanwhile MSIL had launched the A-Star AT on 15-Aug and ajmat had done the official TD/review. There seemed to be a strong connect here.
I have never felt the need for an AT car since I am comfy with gears and like it that way instead of the car making the decision for me. Plus the extra cost and reduced FE did not make the case any stronger. But this time I had a rethink. Its an A-Star, which is renowned for FE - I read in the brochure that it came first in some FE competition in Australia. So, even accounting for a few kmpl drop in FE, I reckoned 14-15kmpl should be easy in Kollam (Kerala).
Regarding the price differential, you do need to pay for the convenience. Plus the attraction was ABS and seat-height adjustment being part of the deal. There were no TD cars at Kollam and so I just went by ajmat's review - looked like a good car for our needs. Some more discussion at home and we decided it is worth changing to the A-Star.
Changed the booking to A-Star AT on 20-Sep-2010 and were told it would take 25 days. We were fine with that. But a rude shock awaited us 3 weeks later - the dealer told us that there is delay from MSIL side (CWG etc etc) and that it will take 2 months.
This was not what we were promised and I could not believe that a car which just about sells 3K units all over India a month, would have demand enough for its AT version. Anyway, raised a ruckus with Maruti who confirmed that the waiting period for the car was indeed 2 months. They could not explain then why the dealer quoted us 25 days initially. Or why another dealer (Hercules) was promising 25 days.
Anyway, we somehow reconciled ourselves to another wait, hoping the car would be with us around 20-Nov. And that was when the dealer again says it would be end-Dec or early-Jan to get the car. This was not funny anymore and after some emails back and forth with MSIL, we are told that the Black color we ordered would take time. Instead we were given an option to choose from 1 of 4 colors all of which sounded crappy to us. But since we did not want to wait any further, we chose Healing Green.
Keenly followed shipping from factory and the car reached Kollam on 6-Dec-2010. After registration and stuff, we got the car on 8-Dec-2010. After discounts of 22.5K, the onroad cost came to around 4.65lakhs. The dealer gave mud-flaps, steering grip, floor mats and seat covers as free accessories. But given the quality (lack of it actually), they need not have bothered.
The stiches of the seat cover is already coming loose after just 150kms and the front mud flaps were creating a racket everytime you did a reverse - the flappy part would rollback and get stuck between the wheels and the wheel well. I tried folding it back into place, but after another reverse, it was the same story. Finally cut off the flappy part.
The Odo read 32kms of which some 15-16kms would be the run from yard to dealership to RTO and back. The salesguy said the remaining kms is driving around done by MSIL as standard practice on all new cars, which frankly sounds like a load of bull. I find it tough to believe that MSIL drives around each of the 1lakh cars they roll out every month. Anyway...
The car parked on the sandy yard of the church at my in-laws place.
One thing I noticed is that there is no "Automatic" badge at the rear of the car. This badge is there in the car ajmat TD-ed. Not sure what is the reason here.
Driving impressions to follow.
P.S. : Any other A-Star AT owners on the forum ? Would like to share notes.