Chennai - Bangalore - Chennai - Total KMS - ~700 Road profile - Lots of free way, little of city roads, one 15KM stretch of really bad road and usual Chennai roads.
Ride review includes - Rear seat comfort, ride quality in bad roads compared with swift, braking efficiency, handling and overall drive comfort.
Handling - The car is a high way rider. Purely loves the highway and is a pleasure to drive at over 100KMPH. The simplest comparison I can give is, the car when driving at 100-120 gives the trust a swift gives at driving around 60-80. The handling is superb. The steering feels right (though some say its light) and body roll is absent for most of the curves. Sharp curves does introduce a very minute body roll at over 120KMPH. But the car still stays within the track almost giving a straight line experience in the corners. One can always stay about 100 (If there are no traffic) in most of the roads where the car will take the curves with so much ease and perfection.
9/10 Ride Quality:- For the front passengers the drive was always comfortable. The question was about the rear seat comfort. We drove nonstop for close to 290 kms and the only feedback I got from my friend sitting in the rear was "awesome car man.. chumma no stress or strain of the 5 hr drive.. watte experience". The other feedback I got from another friend(sitting in the rear) in the car was the front seats had very little clearance(below) to place the foot while stretching. Overall met the expectation to keep the rear seat passengers comfortable. The suspension is definitely on the stiffer side. This just translates to firm and confident ride on the highway with no body roll or instability.
9/10 Braking :- The best part of this car is its braking. From 110KMPH to 10KMPH car stops without an urgency that may panic the passengers. I had to stop for a crazy lorry driver moving to the right track at close to 10KMPH overtaking another lorry at probably 5kmph. I hit the brakes and had enough in it to completely depress just in case I had to go for sudden halt. The car did not feel like struggling to slow down. The car kept its straight line and almost felt like gradually slowing down. This just adds confidence to the driver to drive this car with ease and comfort and more importantly confidence.
10/10 Bad roads:- Drive in Swift:- The Guinea pig for testing close to 20KM stretch of road between Mudichoor and Sriperumbudur was my Swift. I know the swift had the clearance to avoid any scrapping and wanted to check the roads on Friday night. I felt so bad and hurt for taking swift in those roads that we took the round about route to reach Bangalore. The drive was very harsh, the pot holes were giving me enough to forget about taking this route. I definitely felt a little bit tired after testing this route.
Drive in Jetta:- While returning back from Bangalore we decided to take this route knowing we can save over an hour of extra travel. The difference in drive is huge. None of us felt the bad roads. The car was just gliding over the bad roads and none of the disturbances were getting filtered into the cabin. There was not even an instance where it felt tiresome. The car handles bad roads with so much ease and comfort that I would not think twice to take some bad roads in this beauty. Of course I drove it slowly and carefully like I did my swift. The way the car is built just makes the bad road disappear under the tyres.
Headlights:- We travelled back from Bangalore at 5:30 Am. The headlights are very sufficient and the high beam is very effective. I have no plans to change the head lights.
Power:- The car has enough power even at 100kmph. One can feel confident to gently accelerate or suddenly accelerate based on the needs and the car will respond. Have not tested any top speed yet. But was moving between 100-120 consistently to run in the engine.
The engine oil after the drive is now looking a bit grey than clear. Total KMS run is 1309. Oil level looks fine and coolant level looks great. Planning to just take it to the workshop to get the fluids checked and topped up if required before the next long drive to Trivandrum.
Fuel Efficiency:-
The MSD has calculated the FE to be 21.0 for the entire trip. Total KMS driven is 678 and total mileage for the trip is 21KMPL. Approximately 2 rupees per KM of running cost.
Will post pictures of the car soon.
Small but significant things:-
1) The bonnet is shielded in a way that no heat was felt on top of it even after driving for over 3 hours.
2) There are hooks in the rear pillars to hang our food bag or even a towel which came in very handy
3) Steering mounted controls feel very good and does not cause any fatigue to fingers.
4) Steering is a little big compared to my swift and has the tilt function. This helps positioning oneself to a comfortable spot for long drives.
5) The Seat belt lock is placed a bit awkward. Its awkward while only locking the seat belt.
6) AUX input works pretty well and the music system presents fantastic sound quality while even playing from a N8 or Galaxy phone.
7) Car is completely silent inside the cabin with close to 80% of sound/Noise filtered. Only 10-20% of the road noise reaches the inner cabin. This makes high speed driving even more comfortable.
More to follow.....