Till recently, my wife and I owned a Maruti 800 MPFI (2002 ? AC). But with my daily driving of almost 70 kms in the sweltering Mumbai heat and the ?wonderful? roads (we taxpayers pay for), the car was just not giving me the much-needed comfort that we were looking for. So a couple of months back, we finally decided that it was time to look for a better car.
What followed was two months of extensive research. What we were looking for was a reliable car, with good pre and after sales service, with a decent mileage and EMI and the lowest possible down payment. What follows is a detailed summary of our findings with a final culmination of what we bought.
The Fiat Palio was our first test car. The test drive track I chose was the Thane ? Ghodbunder road and the car was the 1.2 Sport NV. For people familiar with Mumbai and this road, you will be familiar that this road gives a brand new meaning to pot holed roads. My logic was that if a car can take this road with ease, any other road would be a cakewalk. As a matter of fact, we chose this road for all the test-drives.
The car performed beautifully. The steering, A/C, interiors, seating were all top notch. The leather wrapped steering wheel and gearshift knob were a nice touch. The biggest plus point was the suspension. I took the car mercilessly over all the potholes and the car did not even whimper. The only minus point in the car was its acceleration which lacks the punch of a 1200 cc car. Anyway, I proceeded to then ask people about the much touted ?revamped? after sales service and almost all cribbed about the service still being poor. Hence even though I liked the car (apart from the acceleration and bad service), I decided not to go in for it. I should mention that the initial customer service was OK.
Next, the Opel Corsa 1.4 GLS. I would have normally not gone it for this car because of the affordability factor, but GM had an excellent deal going on (Rs. 4.99 lakhs inclusive of registration and first year?s insurance), so I decided what the hell. Well, the initial impressions were that the car looks a lot bigger from the inside rather than the outside although the exterior styling leaves a lot to be desired.
The interiors of the car are impeccable to say the least and the European quality clearly shows here. In terms of external build quality, the car is very solidly built, a little too solidly as it translates into a lot of weight, which became apparent in the handling of the car. The test drive of the car was a little disappointing. The car had a very good acceleration and the cooling of the AC is excellent but because of the heaviness, there was tremendous body roll in the car.
On our pot holed test drive car the car frequently bumped on the underside (which quite frankly I did not expect after seeing their TV commercials!). Hence all these negatives combined with a max fuel efficiency of 10 KMPL and high cost of spares, crossed this car out of our list. But I must also mention that in terms of customer service, the Opel guys were the best of the whole lot.
The next car we test drove was the Wagon R. Before I dwell upon the experience, I must tell you that the Wagon R is probably one of the best-designed cars internally. The variety of things you can do with the seating is excellent and they have also maximized the use of the dashboard well. The quality of plastics was also very good and next only to the Opel Corsa. But what it gained in terms of interiors, it completely lost out on the test drive.
Perhaps due to the odd boxy styling of the car it had such a tremendous body roll that it felt very unsafe. Add to this the fact that the engine of the Wagon R is essentially the engine of a Maruti 800 with an additional cylinder (this is true), hence the gearshift and pick up feels more or less like the 800. The body roll also contributes to a feeling that you are not safe and the braking further reinforces this feeling. So in the end, we crossed out this car as well.
At this point of time the Santro Getz was launched, so my wife and I paid a visit to the dealership (MODI Hyundai in Thane). Before I delve further into this, I should mention that while in the US, my first ever car was a Hyundai Elantra GLS. I was very unhappy with the performance of the car but I said, what the hell, its Hyundai India here so lets give them another chance.
For me, the Getz was grossly overpriced so I decided against it but thought that it would be worthwhile to give the Santro Xing a try. Well, my customer service experience was pathetic to say the least with matters going all the way to the GM- Customer Service All India, but that?s another story which I plan to detail for all you guys in the dealership section of mouthshut. For now, let me proceed with the actual test drive experience of the car:
The car performed quite well on the pothole filled test drive track and the AC was excellent to boot. The cabin noise was negligible and the steering was impeccable. The pick up left a little to be desired but I guess you cannot have everything. In terms of back seating, I really did not bother too much as I will be driving the car solely almost 90% of the time, so as long as the front seats were comfortable, I was fine. In the end of the test drive, the good points of the car coupled with the fact that their service network was ?supposedly good? helped us make up our mind to buy this car.
I should mention to all new car buyers a few things about car finance. I was able to get this car fully financed (100%), so please do not believe the sales people if they tell you otherwise. Generally all cars in this small segment will get you the full finance. For larger cars e.g. the Esteem and Accent, you can get up to 95% finance. The only hitch might be brand new cars, which are launched which will get you 90% finance at the most. Please keep these things in mind, as it will help you a lot in reducing your initial down payment.
In addition to this, whenever you take a car loan the bank gives you something called as a bank payout, which can vary from 4.25% to 3.5% of your loan amount. This amount is supposed to be given back to YOU! But many times the dealers will hide this from you and keep this amount back, so please make sure you ask for this. Many a times, the dealers give free insurance, etc in lieu of the payout. Just ensure that the freebies equal the payout amount. By following these tactics, I was able to get a discount of 40, 000 on my Santro XS and my initial down payment was only 9000 (inclusive of my 3rd and 4th year?s warranty and my first EMI). Just so that you know, my loan is for 5 years and my registration was proper Mumbai registration (not ex-Thane which is illegal).
Well, now I am the owner of a black Santro XS and let me tell you how it has been running for the past 5 months (almost 10000 kms). The car has been running smoothly and giving me an average of around 14.5 KMPL (started with only 10 KMPL which was due to a cracked fuel hose ? which was replaced after three visits to the service center). I use 91-octane fuel from Indian Oil and my daily run includes 20 km of purely highway driving and 50 km of back-to-back city driving. Some of the good points of the car are its good sound proofed cabin, decent ac (although not too good in the Mumbai summers) and pickup. On the downside its suspension is a little hard and so are the seats.
So in the end, am I happy with the car, I would say, considering the money spent on it? Yes!
Hope this review will assist you to making a knowledgeable decision when buying a new car. If it doe