I was looking to upgarde my Santro to a sedan with a budget of 9L. Test drove SX4, Verna, Honda city and Fiesta.
SX4: ruled out because of the shape and more over I am not a great fan of maruti vehicles.
Honda City: compared feature by feature with Fiesta 1.6S and felt I would be paying a premium of 1.2 L just for the Honda Badge. At 9.7 L no alloy wheels, skinny tyre, poor plastic quality (its even bad compared prev gen city) I do agree that Honda vehicle are more reliable and have good resale value. But then I was looking for a car to drive today and was not much concerned about the resale value of the car after 3-4 years. Again Honda city looks very delicate. Hence ruled out.
Fietsa 1.6S : I TD this beauty not once but three times before issuing the cheque.
Looks: great with skirting’s, new spoiler, 15" alloys, bigger front grill.
Interior: not great but good for the value of the car.
Performance: wow! This where it scores over its competition. Its quite a silent performer. It really exemplify Autocar’s “the best drivers car” award. Suspension is great which gives the car better handling and stability.
It has the ABS and dual airbags which gives you that extra confidence to push the car to the territory where it comes to its true colors. Ford should considered an extra 20BHP to make it a real sporty car. But 101 BHP at 6000RPM and 146@3400RPM is good enough to zoom off from standstill.
Verna: after I TD the fiesta, I never bother to TD the Verna. I hope I have not missed anything.
Till now I have driven close to 1600 km, fuel efficiency is adequate – 11.5 KPL.
Now I strongly believe that this car is the best, one can buy in under 10L category.
Just want to go one on one with the new honda city. It would be great to see the new honda city in rear view mirror.
Updated on 6- jan -09:
I had taken this on a trip to Mysore and Pondicherry. The drive was excellent. At high speed the car held its composure and felt very stable. The car felt stable at both the straight lines and bends. Touched 165kmph on the ECR road and never felt that car running out of breath. And most important the braking is also very good and self assuring. The car returned a decent mileage of 15 KPL on the highways.