I started market research for car some 3 months back. At that time one of my friends wanted to buy a car and I was helping him out. At the same time I also felt that this seems to be the right time for me to buy a car. The main purpose for the car was to drive around my parents as they are no more comfortable on 2-wheeler.
So I decided to go for a small car as my driving will be restricted to weekends or some one-off excursions outside city. I didnt wanted to use it for my daily commutation to office because of traffic constraints.
After a lot of research, I finally shortlisted SantroXing, Spark and Wagon R. Maruti A-Star was going out of my budget and same was with Vista. I had strictly restricted my budget to 3.5L. Wagon-R was quickly outvoted as I never liked its looks.
I test drove Spark and just fell in love with the car. I think I made my decision that day itself that I would be driving home the Spark. But still I also considered Santro Xing and test dorve it. Santro has better pick up. On mileage front, Snatro loses the battle by small margin. But again Santro had following problems from my point of view:-
1) No Standard Tubeless Tyres
2) The version GL exceeded my budget
3) At lower price, I was getting Spark with much more features like body colored bumpers, front 2 power windows.
The only thing against Spark was that its boot was smaller than Santro which would be posing problems to be sometime in future. I compromised on it and went for Spark. Moreover I liked looks of Spark much more then Santro.
There are 2 GM dealers in Pune - Talera and Pashankar. Pashankar easily way ahead of Talera. But still I used quotations from Talera to bargain with Pashankar Auto. After almost hard bargaining for 3 weeks, we settled for an agreement and I booked the Spark to be delivered on 27th March on Gudi-Padwa (Marathi New Year). The accesories I fitted with car were:-
1) Blaupunkt Music System - Kington MP47 model
JBL Front Speakers - S204
JBL Rear Speakers - 6x9" GTO 937
2) Seat Covers
My dealer had promised me a grand delivery. I insisted that I want the first delivery on the day as I didnt had holiday in office. And he didnt let me down. On 27th, he gave me a call to come to showroom at 9:30 to pick up the car. The delivery was not that grand but it was good. The car was decorated with ribbons. I performed Puja and then he explained to me all the features. Afte completing all the formalities, I drove home my first new car.
How the car feels??
As of now, I call my car Sparky . From whatever I have expereinced so far-
1) The engine is super silent. Once you close the windows, you wont even know whether is engine is on or off.
2) If you take out car from shade in afternoon, AC will cool the cabin within a couple of minutes. But when the car gets roasted in afternoon sun, it takes at least 5-10 minutes for AC to cool the cabin. But still AC is really good.
3) The best thing is that you can pull the car in 4th gear at the speed of 20 without operating clutch. Its a bliss in Pune traffic. While AC is operating you may sometimes have to shift to 3rd. But still this part is impressive .
4) Pick-up is good, especially in 2nd Gear. Right now I am keeping the max speed limit as 75-80, so didnt really get a chance to rip it off.