3 months back I had been searching for buying a hatchback for daily office commute and some weekend trips with my family. I was looking for a petrol variant since I wont be clocking more kilometers. The cars which were on my mind were Swift zxi, and Skoda Fabia.
I went to the respective dealers to test drive the car. I never wanted to test drive Swift because my friend had a new one and I was so impressed by the sporty looks and the very nice feel when I drive it. In fact I had totally focussed on buying a Swift ZXI but the long waiting period and how bad the executives at Popular Maruthi dealer(Karamana), dealt with my enquiry, I dropped the idea and went to Marikar for seeing the Skoda Fabia. A nice executive showed me the car and explained me all the features. Skoda has given very good safety features to even the entry level models.
One thing I noticed is the top models of fabia are very costly and I am a geek who wants some goodies to play around in the dashboard. Quality of plastics used and the over all vehicle is super but for the money I pay for the top model I can look to buy a Sedan with more space.
Utterly confused, I called my friend’s brother who has very good knowledge on automobiles though he is a marine engineer :-) . He asked me to go see hyundai i20.
Having heard that, Me and my wife went to the Popular (Hyundai) showroom. At first sight itself I liked the mercedes SLR stolen looks on top of the bonnet. The one they had on display was a Blue Asta model. After opening the doors, I was totally smitten, because plastics used are much much better than Swift. The steering wheel stolen from Honda city style I guess was also looking good. I was told about the features Automatic Climate Control, Two front air bags, In built CD changer with USB support and aux in, EBD brakes with ABS, Electronic Power steering, Electronic foldable and adjustable OVRM, Alloy wheels. I went to the back of the car to see the boot and wow that was more than what expected in a hatch back, still the car with in 4 meter tax bracket. Now another great find, this even the hyundai executive didn’t know, the fifth wheel also comes with alloy, something I haven’t even seen in top model of Fiat Linea and many expensive cars.
After being looking through the important goodies, I wanted to open the hood, the executive told me its the same kappa 1.2 engine used in i10, which shocked me a bit and felt little disappointed. Seeing my face, the executive asked me to take a test drive. I said fine, I got the test vehicle that was also an Asta variant, once inside the car, started the engine, well cabin noise is very less, its even hard to say whether engine is on or not, which I never saw in Fabia which was bit noisy.
Now, I took the car to the road, something I immediately notice is steering is so light and easy to use but something is missing in it, soon I could find it with a shock that there is absolutely no communication between the tyres and the steering wheel, I am missing that sporty drive I get when am behind the wheel on Swift. Power is less compared to Swift but its not bad either. ABS brakes are too good and very scary if using it for the first time. Interestingly I was happy with the boot space, the magnificent interiors, interior leg space, tilt able-telescopic steering wheel and height adjustable driver seat.
I was making a comparison, the things I am going to miss are the power that the swift gives me and sporty drive. But I asked to myself, I am not going for rally racing, this is for me and family to commute.So I went for the i20 Asta Blue for an on road price of 6.14 lakhs. The dealer promised to deliver the vehicle with in 30 days and I got it well with in that.
I need to say it had been a very good customer relationship management and service from Popular Hyundai, Trivandrum. Once I got the car, I took it to Car Palace at Kesavadasapuram. Added very good seat covers (Dolphin brand) for 7K and window sun film (Carbon) for 2.8K. By the way make sure you don’t go for dark colored sun film, its hard at night to park this in to a parking slot or driving at night where there is no street light.
Next day I took the car to Car shoppe Pongumoodu and fixed two roots horn and reverse parking sensors. The company horn is really bad and never useful on high ways. Reverse parking sensor was something that came standard on Fabia :-)
Now anyone taking an i20 and fixing a roots or any external horn, make sure what happened to me doesn’t affect you also. The power drawn by the roots horn is very high that my in built stereo resets if it is playing music from USB drive. If its cd/radio no problem. This is one problem still not fixed in my car. I use CD to play music or only use USB if I am using the company horn with the selectable two way switch. If the ipod is connected there is no problem.
I have clocked 2890 kms so far. First service is over a month back. I am getting a good mileage of 15km/l inside city and 18km/l on high ways with AC on all the time. I am used to the over engineered steering which is very light. Above 3K rpm the car has a very good power house behind something trendy from kappa engine I believe. I don’t usually take it above 3k rpm though to avoid any engine strain.
Now let me open up regarding the problems so far. The car has shown only once problem till day, the AC got faulty, service team looked in to the issue and found that its not the AC that is complaint but the Automatic climate control sensor(Thermistor). What they said is correct because AC works at times. Hyundai service centre(Popular) advised me to change the thermistor under warranty. But they don’t have the part on stock and need to get it from Chennai plant. So they placed an order for me almost 2 weeks back, last weekend the representative called me and told me its not available on their plant also and will need to be shipped from Korea. Still I have not got a call from them regarding the part availability. I do not know why hyundai released a vehicle model on road with out its parts available on circulation.
Anyway Car is good... worth every penny...Good mileage...very comfortable. Now there is 1.4 l automtatic petrol and 1.4 diesel on offer.
Update:- So I had to wait exactly 2 weeks, with no response from the service centre, then send a mail directly to Hyundai, once that was done, Hyundai was so fast to come to my rescue. They gave a reply to my mail and called me over phone with in 8 hours. The new thermistor was shipped and it was fixed in less than 4 hours and the service centre gave me the vehicle back on Monday night 8pm 20/07/2009.
But neither the Hyundai customer care nor the service provider gave me a clarification on whose fault it was clearly. Hyundai didn’t say anything and Service centre guys said, they couldn’t locate the part in the plant against the VIN(Vehicle Identification Number) online. Anyway My issue is solved though I had suffered 3weeks + time with out a AC :-(