Quote:
Originally Posted by MAS +1. Your post was unreadable and i had to copy/paste it and separate the questions before i could understand your requirements. I have put down the questions (numbered them) and answers in a more readable format for the benefit of others in the forum. |
Thanks MAS mate! It is efforts like this which make this forum special.
@Rai, am adding some comments, with
YOUR text in bold below and then following it with further thoughts below. Hope you will find them useful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by raichoudhury @Poitive
1. Annual Mileage - About 12000 Km
Therefore total approx use of car before sale = 1.2L kms. Most cars should not have an issue with that. However, 10 years is not a short time.
2. Usage - 70% City 30% highways
30% highways = 12,000 x 30% = 3600kms
At an average speed (after all deductions) on typical Non-GQ highways, of about 50kmph, it should mean about 3600/50 = 72 hours. Say if on a typical day you are on the wheel for 1 hour, in one sense, it is about two to two and a half months equivalent of driving! Not less, I'd say.
3. Nature of traffic - It is not kind of bumper to bumper traffic. Roads are reasonably good. Lucky guy!
4. Managing a car with some niggles, if it is good on other fronts?
Yes - but this is only for the Safari You do seem to love the idea of a Safari
5. Do you drive hard and need a car which handles well. Especially around corners? Ans - No
6. Do you often drive fast? Can you compromise a bit on that?
Ans-I do not drive fast at all but that does not mean that I do not love powerful cars All the cars you have shortlisted, seem to be powerful enough, so that should not be a worry.
7. How important is a smooth engine to you? Ans-Fairly important Not had experience with the new Safaris. Please make your checks to see if it is good enough.
8. How important is the car cabin being spacious to you? Ans-Not that important
9. Are you open to managing the odd time when you may have to run a bit for the parts? Which city is the car going to be in? Ans-No time to run around. City would be Bhubaneshwar If looking for a trouble-free reliable cars, you should be looking at Japanese cars. Not one in your shortlist.
10. How important is Fuel Efficiency to you? Ans-Fairly important Again, am not sure, but the Safari may not really cut it there. Verna and Vento should be good. Magnum moderate.
11. How important is the cost of maintenance to you? Ans-Important as it would be my second car as I would retain my Swift D Vento is suspect. We don't know the long term costs of this one. Also, Skoda being from the same company rasies doubts.
12. How important is the resale value to you? Ans-Not really important but I would not like to face situations like Matiz / Ceilo owners did
Magnum becomes a doubtful choice, given your 10 years. I have 5-7 in mind but bought it, as it suits my needs very well. |
Given your 10 years of use, resale value, proven and acclaimed reliability, ample highway usage the one that does come to mind is the
Innova. It may not be as much fun to drive, but should be a very practical choice. It may not be as Fuel Efficient as Vento and Verna. Mohit may be able to tell you more about it. BTW, you should look around the forum. A new Innova is to be launched. It should work better for your resale value too.
Tata Safari doesn’t seem to be suspect as a choice, unless you love the vehicle. But come on! You can’t even use it everyday as you said. What is the point of spending as much and not even get any joy from it during the week. May as well buy something else. SUV’s with their higher GC are almost never as much fun to drive, unless you get a thrill from being towering over the smaller cars and bulling them around. This one does get “respect” on the highways to an extent though. Also, consider the safety point I had talked about. People behind you can’t see what lies ahead of you and consequently you may have a slightly higher chance of an accident. You say the roads aren’t too bad, so why an SUV? Also, if you get into an accident with such a heavy vehicle, you may cause a lot of damage to the other person. IIRC I read that SUVs bumper height is such that if it hits a pedestrian, the chances of fatality are much higher than sedans.
Vento is a good choice, if you are OK with the cabin. I had serious issues with it (a large part to do with my body structure and 6'), but there are many many happy users. The A$$ costs being relatively unknown becomes a bit of an issue. The engine is a bit rough/noisy in comparison to say the Magnum and Verna. Probably even a bit more than the Innova (am not sure). Some like it. A lot of people go for this for the VW badge. If the badge does things for you, it may be a good choice. Other reasons to go for this are for how it is for spirited driving. Given you seem to usually be a sedate driver, it makes limited sense, unless the others don't really work for you.
Fluidic Verna is a very good city vehicle if you are to use the front two seats. It seems to be the easiest vehicle to drive of the lot. But over say 80kmph, it made me rather nervous. Didn’t feel composed and the steering was without any feedback. Too game like. If you usually don’t drive above 80 and find the rear bench acceptably good, go for it. It is new too. The A$$ network is good too. Hyundai vehicles are pretty reliable too. But if you drive faster than that, it may not feel as safe, which is a priority for you.
Optra Magnum has been around for about 4-5 years nearly in it’s current avatar. About 8-10 in the older Optra avatar. Given you intend keeping it for 10 years, you may get poor resale value. But hey, after 10 years, most would be bad. I could go on and on about this car. Is late now and I’d like to catch some sleep, so would suggest you spend some time on 3 threads, in case you are considering this seriously. (these threads also have various TD reports)
- My ownership thread (link in my signature)
- The Choosing thread (link in the ownership thread)
- Driven! thread (link again in the ownership thread)
To add to that, from the research I did, was told that spare parts should not be an issue. At most, when it is really old, they may take a few days to arrange it, as they do for the Opel Vectra, which hardly sold and was discontinued many many years back (5 or more?). Was reconfirmed after my purchase in a talk with a senior GM fellow I happened to talk to. It is an absolutely wonderful car in terms of space and how it drives, but the dash design already looks old and you intend keeping it for 10 years. This is a major point of concern in your case. I had 5-7years in mind and have gone ahead.
See if you like the drive enough, to offset those negatives. Also, there is a LOT of talk about this car based on it's petrol sibling, how expensive it used to be to maintain once upon a time, etc. They made changes to the exhaust system during the BS4 changes and the new one hardly has any turbolag, if you are used to diesel engines. A lot of people comment on it, without really even having TD the "
new" car!
(note: I could not help myself from adding as much, even when I was so sleepy. LOL. This car does it to me
)
Do let us know what you think.