Hello Everyone,
I have been driving the Xing for past 4 months now. I used to drive a Maruti 800 earlier so you might find this review a bit exaggerating. But honestly this is pretty much the car I was expecting to have. Traffic in Pune is horrible and inspite of the urge to have a bigger car, I was forced to take a step back because every scratch on my dear car takes 1 year of my life. Not that I get the car scratched everyday but bigger the car, larger the surface area, more the scratches.. and you die fast...;-) I have driven most of the small cars (before and after buying the santro) and still sleep peacefully at night not thinking if I made a wrong choice.
The car has completed approximately 3500 Kms so far and there hasn’t been one dull moment driving this baby. Drive comfort is the best and as I said earlier driving in pune is worse. Schumacher bros must’ve learnt it all here. I’ve seen a couple of people on this forum complaining about the average. But again driving is relative from person to person. I am not complaining about average especially after this particular experience. The last time I had been to Mumbai with 80% of the journey without AC, it gave me an average of 19 Kms/Lt. I am pretty sure the readings were accurate and that I don’t have a faulty fuel gauge on the car or a abnormal fuel tank.
I drove at a constant speed of 120 Kms/hr on the expressway and luckily had less traffic in the city. Normal city driving fetches me 13-14 Kms/Ltr and I am fine by it because I have always been putting convenience before money as long as it is in my limits to spend. I have driven the Altos, Wagon-Rs, Zens and the Indicas (Unfortunately not the palio). I have always found the Marutis cramped, Often I used to joke that on a full stomach I can drive the car with my stomach instead of hands. Besides the driving comfort the car looks good, much better than the earlier santros which used to look like DC inspired hatch back Auto Rickshaws.
Regarding the Cons of the car, I will nod in agreement with rest of the fellow santro owners for average AC performance, It still needs to find equilibrium with the amount of petrol it guzzles when the AC is on.