[bharatbits]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

If you have a budget of 5 lakhs, don't expect anything impressive in showrooms. New cars that are so cheap tend to carry compromise in nearly every area. At the same time, since 90% of your driving is within city limits, I would not recommend a large, although very tempting sedan, as your primary car.
PS: if you are hung up on buying a new car, you can extract massive discounts on the Ritz

Thanks for the reply. I have kind of made up my mind on going in for a new car for the feel good factor. I will look at Ritz .

For now i was thinking of the Indica eV2 (CR4 engine BS4 compliant) LX variant which Tata says is refined compared to the earlier engine.

[bharatbits]

Now that the Ritz is discontinued it will be a nice option to look at. What are your views on Skoda Fabia ? When was it discontinued?

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by bharatbits

Thanks for the reply. I have kind of made up my mind on going in for a new car for the feel good factor. I will look at Ritz .

For now i was thinking of the Indica eV2 (CR4 engine BS4 compliant) LX variant which Tata says is refined compared to the earlier engine.

I think you should first have a look at the pre-owned market. There will be tons of options at ~5L. The Old Jazz as IshaanIan mentioned, the prev gen i20, VW Polo are some of the hatchbacks. The prev gen fiesta, ~2011 Honda City are the Sedans worth looking at.

For a new car would recommend looking at new Tata Zica. Should be launching in the next couple of weeks and as per the reviews, it is the best ever from Tata. The base version is expected to start under 4L, so you should be able to get the mid variant between 5-6L on road. You can also look at the Bolt. There should be some very good discounts on it. Also worth looking at the mid variants of the Ford Figo and Polo. These are above your budget, but slow selling and hence there may be some good discounts especially if there is 2015 stock.



The Ritz is on the verge of getting discontinued, don't think it makes sense to buy it now. A pre owned Skoda also is a risky proposition.

[swift_guy]

Seems like this is an apt thread for my query. I have given this a serious thought and have come up with a revised budget and requirements.

I am in the market with a variable (on road) budget of :

*6 Lac for a New Diesel
*5.5 Lac for a New CNG
*4 Lac for a Used Diesel

Car has to be a Diesel or CNG, and NOT a Petrol. Not considering CNG used cars because of kit-quality and reliability concerns. CNG is preferred over Diesel as it is cheap, clean and also due to Delhi's proposed odd-even shit.

Car will be used for city runs, 90% of the time with speeds <80 km/h, solo-driven with a moderately light foot mostly (otherwise driver+2 passengers) and even base variants would do. In fact, base variants would be preferred due to the tight budget. Airbags and ABS, if possible to get with an increase in ~30k, will be welcome. Not considering Tata, VW and Skoda. Swift and Dzire will also not be considered.

Usage is ~25k kms for 8 years in case of a new car and ~20k kms for 5 years in case of a used car, after which I will sell them off. Resale value, less maintenance costs and reliability are important. In case of used cars, more than 5 year/60k km old samples won't be considered.

While the new car purchases are tension-free, the used car market has tempting deals which made me consider both. For an idea, in Faridabad, one can have a 2011 City for 4 Lac, 2009 Altis for 4.5 Lac, 2011 Polo at 3 Lac, 2008 Civic at 2.75 Lac and so on.

I will be evaluating every possible car that meets my requirements. So, bring on the options and let me know how I should proceed.

EDIT - Car purchase will be before August 2016 (more likely in April-May) with cash payment. Also, I negotiate hard anyway.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by swift_guy

Seems like this is an apt thread for my query. I have given this a serious thought and have come up with a revised budget and requirements.

I am in the market with a variable (on road) budget of :

*6 Lac for a New Diesel
*5.5 Lac for a New CNG
*4 Lac for a Used Diesel

Car has to be a Diesel or CNG, and NOT a Petrol. Not considering CNG used cars because of kit-quality and reliability concerns. CNG is preferred over Diesel as it is cheap, clean and also due to Delhi's proposed odd-even shit.

Car will be used for city runs, 90% of the time with speeds <80 km/h, solo-driven with a moderately light foot mostly (otherwise driver+2 passengers) and even base variants would do. In fact, base variants would be preferred due to the tight budget. Airbags and ABS, if possible to get with an increase in ~30k, will be welcome. Not considering Tata, VW and Skoda. Swift and Dzire will also not be considered.

Usage is ~25k kms for 8 years in case of a new car and ~20k kms for 5 years in case of a used car, after which I will sell them off. Resale value, less maintenance costs and reliability are important. In case of used cars, more than 5 year/60k km old samples won't be considered.

While the new car purchases are tension-free, the used car market has tempting deals which made me consider both. For an idea, in Faridabad, one can have a 2011 City for 4 Lac, 2009 Altis for 4.5 Lac, 2011 Polo at 3 Lac, 2008 Civic at 2.75 Lac and so on.

I will be evaluating every possible car that meets my requirements. So, bring on the options and let me know how I should proceed.

EDIT - Car purchase will be before August 2016 (more likely in April-May) with cash payment. Also, I negotiate hard anyway.

Hi Swift_Guy,

I think a used Honda city is a perfect car for your requirement. There are plenty of them in Faridabad and most of them are well maintained. For example a dealer on Bata chowk had one 2010 city SAT with 52K Kms on odo and was asking for 3.9 Lacs and was ready to negotiate. The only negative about the car is ground clearance and given the roads we have in Faridabad it becomes little difficult to drive such a low slung car. Otherwise its a very nice car & works well with CNG.

[swift_guy]

Originally Posted by nik0502

Hi Swift_Guy,

I think a used Honda city is a perfect car for your requirement. There are plenty of them in Faridabad and most of them are well maintained. For example a dealer on Bata chowk had one 2010 city SAT with 52K Kms on odo and was asking for 3.9 Lacs and was ready to negotiate. The only negative about the car is ground clearance and given the roads we have in Faridabad it becomes little difficult to drive such a low slung car. Otherwise its a very nice car & works well with CNG.

Is CNGing a petrol car a good option? I will cover ~1 Lac kms on a used vehicle, if I get one, and I doubt CNG will be good for an engine designed for petrol. Company fitted CNGs (and not dealer fitted) are a bit safer in this regard. I have also read somewhere that CNG retrofitting is a trial and error method, it may work, it may not.

Also do you know about good retrofitters in Faridabad/Delhi/Noida/Gurgaon? If the retrofitter is reliable and trusted, I might go in for a used City or Verna and add CNG in some time. In this case, I will have lesser risk if the CNG kit doesn't work out well enough and I have to sell the car.

If I get positive responses for a CNG retrofit, I will consider more used cars (in petrol) also to try my luck.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by swift_guy

Is CNGing a petrol car a good option? I will cover ~1 Lac kms on a used vehicle, if I get one, and I doubt CNG will be good for an engine designed for petrol. Company fitted CNGs (and not dealer fitted) are a bit safer in this regard. I have also read somewhere that CNG retrofitting is a trial and error method, it may work, it may not.

Also do you know about good retrofitters in Faridabad/Delhi/Noida/Gurgaon? If the retrofitter is reliable and trusted, I might go in for a used City or Verna and add CNG in some time. In this case, I will have lesser risk if the CNG kit doesn't work out well enough and I have to sell the car.

If I get positive responses for a CNG retrofit, I will consider more used cars (in petrol) also to try my luck.

There is absolutely no problem in retrofitting a petrol car with CNG, all you have to ensure you are getting a good quality CNG kit and the installer does not skip on essentials. I am driving CNG cars since 2009. There is absolutely no problem in installing a CNG kit to a petrol car. My current ride is a 2010 Honda Civic VAT with CNG and you have to drive it to believe how good modern CNG kits are. There is no vibrations, no fluctuation in RPMs at all and it feels as good as petrol. About the retrofitters most of the dealers in faridabad are working on pure jugad basis. They sell you new kits with substandard wirings and parts. My suggestion would be to avoid them. I know a guy who does all the CNG work for me. His way of working is little crude but he knows his business. He is working on CNG kits when he was almost 10 years old. Otherwise you can try Go Gas Gurgaon. About the choices of your car, I would suggest avoid Verna. We have a diesel one in family and it's not ageing well. I would recommend a Honda City or an Altis. They both work beautifully with CNG.

[swift_guy]

Originally Posted by nik0502

There is absolutely no problem in retrofitting a petrol car with CNG, all you have to ensure you are getting a good quality CNG kit and the installer does not skip on essentials. I am driving CNG cars since 2009. About the retrofitters most of the dealers in faridabad are working on pure jugad basis. They sell you new kits with substandard wirings and parts. My suggestion would be to avoid them. I know a guy who does all the CNG work for me. His way of working is little crude but he knows his business. He is working on CNG kits when he was almost 10 years old. Otherwise you can try Go Gas Gurgaon. About the choices of your car, I would suggest avoid Verna. We have a diesel one in family and it's not ageing well. I would recommend a Honda City or an Altis. They both work beautifully with CNG.

I meant that is it good to drive a petrol engine on CNG for say 1 Lac kms or not? Most people are suggesting for diesel considering high running and long term use. How much has your car clocked? And how was your experience with other CNG vehicles? How much kms did you cover on them? I am more inclined towards a used car in 3-3.5 Lac range because of the value and lesser depreciation hit when I sell it off. While diesel holds better value in used cars, a CNG vehicle is cheaper to run (I don't mind waiting at queues every other day). I am contacting dealers here one by one and will update with a list of available cars in my budget.

By the way, were you referring to the silver Honda City SAT (with 6/7 spoke aftermarket alloys) in Bata Chowk? I checked it out today but didn't feel comfortable in an automatic. Dealer was quoting 3.85 Lac. But I prefer manual boxes.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by swift_guy

I meant that is it good to drive a petrol engine on CNG for say 1 Lac kms or not? Most people are suggesting for diesel considering high running and long term use. How much has your car clocked? And how was your experience with other CNG vehicles? How much kms did you cover on them? I am more inclined towards a used car in 3-3.5 Lac range because of the value and lesser depreciation hit when I sell it off. While diesel holds better value in used cars, a CNG vehicle is cheaper to run (I don't mind waiting at queues every other day). I am contacting dealers here one by one and will update with a list of available cars in my budget.

By the way, were you referring to the silver Honda City SAT (with 6/7 spoke aftermarket alloys) in Bata Chowk? I checked it out today but didn't feel comfortable in an automatic. Dealer was quoting 3.85 Lac. But I prefer manual boxes.

Hey Swift_guy,

I have covered well over a lac Kms in my carb esteem. My current Esteem stands at 76K Kms which i bought in 2014. A close friend has a Lancer with 1.7 lacs on Odo out of which 1.4 lacs have been covered on CNG. Another close friend owns a Zen Estilo with 1.1 lacs on Odo, CNG kit was fitted @ 42k Kms and the car is still going strong. The key here is to ensure that the odometer reading is genuine. Almost 90% cars with the dealers have their odo meter tampered. Get a genuine car with complete service history. Get the engine compression done and if the engine is healthy than you can easily drive a lac KMs on CNG. Try to find a car which has run less than 50K. Would recommend looking for a car from Gurgaon and Delhi as well.

The auto City I was talking about was cherry colour and was sold almost 2 months back. I would recommend take a longer test drive on a automatic car, These are lot more convenient and fun in city traffic.

[swift_guy]

Originally Posted by nik0502

Hey Swift_guy,

The auto City I was talking about was cherry colour and was sold almost 2 months back. I would recommend take a longer test drive on a automatic car, These are lot more convenient and fun in city traffic.

Your comments were very reassuring. Thanks.

I will look at Delhi and Gurgaon examples also but first I need to shortlist some good cars as these markets are flooded with used cars.

Going by your words, I have come to below options -

1. A new WagonR Lxi CNG with airbag for ~5.25 Lac.

+ New car reliability, factory fitted CNG, company warranty, no hassles of finding the right car (as in case of used), minimal maintenance, airbags
- A WagonR for 5 Lacs, bigger depreciation hit

2. A used City MT for 3.75 Lac, add CNG for 40k

+ Better car for lesser price, lesser depreciation hit (on selling), almost same running costs with a full size sedan, airbags, ABS
- Less reliable, higher maintenance costs (as car would have covered 50k already), no warranty on kit after 1 year, need to find and inspect the right car

3. A used i10/i20 for 2.5/3 Lac, add CNG for 40k

+ Cheapest option, plenty of reserve for maintenance costs, lesser depreciation hit (on selling), almost same running cost with a bigger car (than WagonR)
- Less reliable, higher maintenance costs (as car would have covered 50k already), no warranty on kit after 1 year, need to find and inspect the right car, no airbags/ABS

It is a typical Honda vs Hyundai vs Maruti war. Good thing is that I have ~3 months to decide.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by swift_guy

Your comments were very reassuring. Thanks.

I will look at Delhi and Gurgaon examples also but first I need to shortlist some good cars as these markets are flooded with used cars.

Going by your words, I have come to below options -

1. A new WagonR Lxi CNG with airbag for ~5.25 Lac.

+ New car reliability, factory fitted CNG, company warranty, no hassles of finding the right car (as in case of used), minimal maintenance, airbags
- A WagonR for 5 Lacs, bigger depreciation hit

2. A used City MT for 3.75 Lac, add CNG for 40k

+ Better car for lesser price, lesser depreciation hit (on selling), almost same running costs with a full size sedan, airbags, ABS
- Less reliable, higher maintenance costs (as car would have covered 50k already), no warranty on kit after 1 year, need to find and inspect the right car

3. A used i10/i20 for 2.5/3 Lac, add CNG for 40k

+ Cheapest option, plenty of reserve for maintenance costs, lesser depreciation hit (on selling), almost same running cost with a bigger car (than WagonR)
- Less reliable, higher maintenance costs (as car would have covered 50k already), no warranty on kit after 1 year, need to find and inspect the right car, no airbags/ABS

It is a typical Honda vs Hyundai vs Maruti war. Good thing is that I have ~3 months to decide.

I wouldn't suggest a wagon R as it's very boring car to drive. Also the bodyroll is too much if you are not used to it. Between i10 & i20, i10 is a segment lower and the feel good factor is not that great. The i20 feels dull to drive even on petrol with the 1.2 kappa engine. Putting CNG will make it even more dull to drive. Also don't forget the weak AC as you would be getting the old model. I would suggest you to also include SX4 in your list. It's a great car and suffers poor resale.

[swift_guy]

My friend also has a 96k km run SX4. I am considering getting a less used petrol version and adding CNG. It would cost around as much as the third option.

How can we check if odometer has been tampered or not? I know we can check condition of tyres, service records, etc. but is there any other fool proof way of checking? There are many options on sale but most have clocked over 80k kms. Another thing is that SX4 Diesel is also ~50k expensive than petrol, and I have talked to a person for a 2011 VDi with 40k kms (3.7 Lac). A diesel, and that too 1.3 DDIS, with 50k kms clocked provides me 1 Lac kms more easily without much niggles. Do let me know if you think the price is right.

And how are Sunny and Vento on CNG? I saw an ad for 4 Lac (2011 Sunny with 28k genuine) and 3.5 Lac (2011 Vento with 30k) but do not think Germans and such would be good on CNG.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by swift_guy

How can we check if odometer has been tampered or not? I know we can check condition of tyres, service records, etc. but is there any other fool proof way of checking? There are many options on sale but most have clocked over 80k kms. Another thing is that SX4 Diesel is also ~50k expensive than petrol, and I have talked to a person for a 2011 VDi with 40k kms (3.7 Lac). A diesel, and that too 1.3 DDIS, with 50k kms clocked provides me 1 Lac kms more easily without much niggles. Do let me know if you think the price is right.

And how are Sunny and Vento on CNG? I saw an ad for 4 Lac (2011 Sunny with 28k genuine) and 3.5 Lac (2011 Vento with 30k) but do not think Germans and such would be good on CNG.

Price seems to be alright for a diesel SX4. You just need to bargain hard and you can have a good deal at your hand. Service history is the most reliable source to know if the meter has been tampered. Remember all the dealers will claim that the car has service history and you can check with the service centre but when you actually do that you ll be shocked to know how confident these dealers are in telling a lie. On two occasions I confronted the dealers and they admitted to tempering the odo and claimed if I would have bought the car they would have informed me about the actual reading. How funny. You would also be surprised to know that all these cars were certified and had warranty on them. So be very cautious while making the purchase.

About CNG sunny can be converted to CNG but the question is do you want to buy a car for 4 lacs today for which you wont find a buyer for even 1.5 lacs 2 years down the line. About Vento germans can also be converted to CNG. I have seen an octavia VRS and a merc E class running on CNG. But the problem is Vento is anyways a little high on maintenance and the there is nothing exciting about the 1.6 MPI engine. On the other hand you can get a 1.6 TDI for just about 4 lacs in good condition.

[CPJ]

Originally Posted by swift_guy

I am in the market with a variable (on road) budget of :

*6 Lac for a New Diesel
*5.5 Lac for a New CNG
*4 Lac for a Used Diesel

Car has to be a Diesel or CNG, and NOT a Petrol. Not considering CNG used cars because of kit-quality and reliability concerns. CNG is preferred over Diesel as it is cheap, clean and also due to Delhi's proposed odd-even shit.

Car will be used for city runs, 90% of the time with speeds <80 km/h, solo-driven with a moderately light foot mostly (otherwise driver+2 passengers) and even base variants would do. In fact, base variants would be preferred due to the tight budget. Airbags and ABS, if possible to get with an increase in ~30k, will be welcome. Not considering Tata, VW and Skoda. Swift and Dzire will also not be considered.

Hello swift_guy,
Based on your requirements, I would suggest you to go for Wagon R CNG Lxi (O) or Celerio CNG Vxi (O).

Both of them are very good city cars, come with factory fitted CNG kits and most importantly backed by Maruti Suzuki's brilliant service network. Between the two, the Celerio comes in Vxi variant for the CNG model and for small premium over the Wagon R has most of the essential features such as all four power windows, internally adjustable ORVM, Central Door locking, Bigger Tyres among others which you would have to add on to the Wagon R.

So do take a test drive and choose the one which you like the most.

Regards,
CPJ

[swift_guy]

Thanks CPJ and nik0502.

I am considering both the options, i.e. new as well as used. New cars I have in mind are WagonR Lxi CNG with Airbag, Celerio Diesel or CNG and maybe, Amaze EMT (retrofit CNG). For used cars, I am considering SX4, City, Civic (), i10 1.2 and Etios in petrol and SX4, i20 and Etios in diesel.

One Civic owner (66k, VMT, 2007, CNG) asking 2.1 Lac is saying that he has done services from outside but with original parts as his friend works in Honda Service. I was anyway not interested in 2007 models but this raised doubts. Is there any other problem in Civic except GC and high maintenance? I am getting many lovely deals for 2010+ Civics, which makes City and SX4 feel overpriced.