Team-BHP - Which is the best car to drive on our potholed roads?

I tried to search for a thread like this but could not find one.

Please note this question is not about off-roading but about daily city driving. Many of our city roads are bad and even roads that are well tarred suddenly get dug up due to the great lack of co-ordination between our civic agencies.

I almost feel that we have accepted bad roads as a given in most part of our cities. In fact while on long distance drives the roads take a turn for much worse the moment you enter a town or a city. Our highways have improved so much in comparison to city roads.

So which car in your opinion is best for driving daily over such roads. Such a car would have to a combination of good suspension and decent GC. I suspect while come of the Sedans would have a good suspension but you would still be driving them gingerly to avoid scraping them over really bad bumps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neeravnaik (Post 3804879)

By all definitions, the category that would best suit you would be SUVs & compact SUVs(CUVs).

Being a Safari Storme owner, I can vouch the beast drives beautifully over potholes & irregular roads.

Case in point, once, on my regular office route, I ended up taking my wifes Nissan Micra. I could not believe the amount of potholes & gaps in the roads which were present, which otherwise, in the Safari would go completely unnoticed. :):thumbs up

If I were to choose, I would say the Duster. It's ride is just wonderful. No doubt its called the *magic carpet*. Soaks up all the bumps and potholes beautifully. From the sedans, I would say that the Etios is a car that rides considerably well.

You haven't mentioned budget here.

@Rohansachar, you hit the nail right on its head. When you get accustomed to a car which rides well, it's really pain to switch back to other cars. I have had this experience myself. At first, I had thought that the monsoons had damaged the roads. But when I went through the same stretch two days later on a vehicle which rides better, I was pleasantly surprised that how all this time I had taken the superb ride as granted on that vehicle.

EDIT: Hoping that the Renault Kwid will be a car with good ride.

Duster hands down! Compact enough for city driving, decent road presence and eats potholes for breakfast.

I can also tell you that Swift is a car that one should avoid if they aren't particularly interested in feeling every little bump/pothole on the road.

EDIT: I have extensively driven the old-gen Laura and sat in a Fabia couple of times. While Skoda is notorious for many reasons, I think it makes one of the best sedans in the market with solid build and underbody protection and a Laura at least, can take any bad roads of India with ease.

The car of choice for tackling the potholed roads would be the Compact UVs in the market - Ecosport, Duster, Terrano and even S Cross and Creta. Small and agile enough to negotiate traffic easily and strong enough to negotiate bumps and potholes with ease.

If looking only at 'preventing underbody scraping', then full size UVs make some sense. Fortuner, Scorpio, Safari, Rexton and the like make a strong case for themselves. But driving them daily in city traffic needs some serious getting-used-to.

If considering hatchbacks, Punto Evo is definitely a good package for bad roads. I would not include sedans basically because of their longer front overhang and lower (and stiff) suspensions. The Skoda Rapid (and Ciaz) are good examples for moderately bad roads but Duster and Fortuner are the kings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fine69 (Post 3804946)

Duster hands down! Compact enough for city driving, decent road presence and eats potholes for breakfast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by petrolhead_neel (Post 3804945)

If I were to choose, I would say the Duster. It's ride is just wonderful. No doubt its called the *magic carpet*. Soaks up all the bumps and potholes beautifully.
You haven't mentioned budget here.

I have been hearing good things about Duster's ride.

Not mentioned the budget as I am currently not considering a purchase. Just exploring on what is really a perfect ride for daily commutes.

I value comfort and convenience foremost without compromising a lot on performance.

Currently I drive Brio AT daily and while it is super smooth to handle and very hassle free it has a really bumpy ride on any kind of potholed road.

Yeah. Punto provides great road and noise insulation.

I recently test drove Ciaz SHVS. With a light steering and soft ride, this make a case of good city sedan. This is Punto class or better on pot-hole ridden roads. However, this felt really floaty on highways and curves (side effect of this suspension setup).

I need a comfortable car for my family and myself and zeroed down on it.

From my experience with small cars- I would pick Punto again. After 1L kms, it still feels like one single piece while our WagonR felt like it would fall apart at 97k kms. And the Xcent feels well put together, but very delicate.

We have DZire and Polo as well in the immediate family circle. While Polo feels just as good in terms of build and suspension, the ground clearance is a concern for very bad roads.