Honda city- choose the best, by G Sundaresh
Selecting a mid segment car, especially when you have more choices to look at is one of the most difficult tasks in the entire process of car buying. Here is how I went about in arriving my decision.
Budget
Initial price
It is always a good way to limit your choices given the kind of price narrowness you see in between cars and variants. This means the price differential between entry level to top end variety is luring for the buyer to go for that bit more luxury. This is truer when you go for a finance option wherein the EMI difference will be just in few thousand for a higher end model. Having a disciplined approach in budgeting will save you money and time.
Usage/post purchase cost
When most of us are worried about the price of the car you buy, what we forget is that the cost of running/maintaining a car for the next 5 years will be almost equal to half the price of the car. Check if you can afford the car on these aspects.
Mileage(increasing petrol prices)Insurance cost (is supposed to go high with new IRDA tariff deregulation)Spare cost (occurrence intervals of parts being changed)Service cost(especially if you intend to service the car at authorised service centre/which is the only choice in this segment)Cost of accessories like music player, car seats, fog lamps, side beams, etc
When I was prepared to buy a midsize car, the most appealing cars were these,
Ford fiesta
Honda city
Chevy Aveo
Ford fiesta
This car is a compact looking car with a great engine and good driving experience. The engine is smooth, the pickup is decent and drive quality good. With an engine capacity of 1600 cc the car revs up fast, with the pick up being the best among the cars driven.The exterior design is contemporary and interiors inviting. However couple of blunder designs which I noticed was the aircon blowers, in which a kid sitting in the front can easily slip a one rupee coin which in turn could damage the aircon system. The in-cabin feel is not great giving the impression of a small size car cabin. The seats are not even comparable to a small size car; the thigh support is pathetic which gives you a numb feeling in your legs after sitting for more than 10 minutes. The mileage the ford guys “predict” is about 12 km in city with 20 % extra on highways.
Overall not a good buy for someone who is looking at a mix of comfort and mileage, but if you are looking for something which is less on initial cost and good engine, it is not bad to look for one.
Honda city
The design is futuristic, the engine practical, price challenging—this is how I will look at this car.Again the engine is smooth, but delivers lesser power than the fiesta /aveo, but the pick up is good. The steering feel is excellent and driving Honda is a pleasure. Since there are 3 variants in normal model and 1 in automatic, making a choice between these is a bit difficult. The variants are nearly priced and the extras which you see in the better variants are also inviting to go for them. But if you can practically think of what you want from your car, things become easy. In my case, we decided on the Exi model for the following reasons.
We were unhappy with beige interiors of the Gxi/Vtec variants as the chances that the upholstery getting easily dirty is high, though the beige interior/chocolate dash looks gorgeous.Since Exi comes with grey interiors we had lesser dirt spots in the car. This is more important if you car is self driven/self cleaned (occasional cleaningfrom car cleaning stations) it is better you go for an easy to clean colour interior. Next was the music system which comes as a standard equipment withGxi/ we thought of buying one from the market(a better one) and fixing, although you may add up 10-20K on the same which strips down the price differential between the two. We were not very bothered about the body coloured handles/mirror back, as it was not that bad in any case. Overall I found 8 differences between the Exi and Gxi out of which 4 were technical changes and the rest cosmetic. Overall Exi was just the right car for us considering the price/features etc. Reasoning was when you are looking at the resale price;there is only a slight differential between the entry/top end models. Since a used car buyer is looking at getting the brand for a lesser cost and not whether it is E or G.
Overall a good car with good cabin space, fantastic driveability and ownership pride.
Chevy Aveo
Renamed from the Daewoo, aveo is a good car with the features presented in the car. The problem is that even after you pump the accelerator pedal it doesn’t respond well, whereas both fiesta and city gives good response. Aveo drags ! , to and extend that you feel you are driving a 400 cc/ 25 bhp engine. The interiors are rich with good fabric/ well thought about design with practical features like the aircon problem in fiesta has been rectified by aveo by installing a filter to the blower. The car is too much “made up” to seduce the customer by providing chrome/wood finish with plenty.
Priced competitive, the car fails to give you that ownership pride and the feel of driving a 1600 cc