well, here goes my second review of the Santro. My Santro eRLX XG is about 15 months old now and much of what I write probably comes as an owner’s testimonial and an offhand comparison with the other cars i’ve driven....
I’m sure most of the readers would be pretty anxious to find out how Santro fares vis-a-vis the ever so active car chruning Maruti stables....the fact pretty much surprises me....the following developments have taken place more or less over the last year and a half that doesn’t bode too well with Hyundai auto:
Accepance of WagonR as a family car inspite of it’s looks, a big time reservation that people once harboured.
Active marketing of the WagonR as ’the long haul car’ as opposed to the silly Shah Rukh Khan nuances that Santro dishes out
Emergence of the revamped WagonR which bears testimony to the fact that Marturi is indeed taking its aesthetics division seriously.
A prototype LPG variant which is a first of sorts.
As if those weren’t sufficient, Maruti racked up the new Estilo in their stables.
With Swift Diesel waiting in the wings, u tend to believe that Maruti is damn serious to give Hyundai a run for their money
Its surprising to see that the only development that’s happened in the Hyundai segment is the launch of the Verna and nothing else !!
Okay, enough of market analysis...lets straightaway get to the nitty gritties....
now, i’m not gonna bombard with all technical gibberish...ground clearance...turning radius etc..etc...as a driver i’ll try and list out the things i’ve liked and not really so....
i’m sure one would have read how smooth the engine is blah..blah...no doubts...but what is a bit of a concern is that the in due course of time, say after 10K kms + u get the feeling the the engine tries to muster every bit of power in its kitty to ramp on....what I mean when I say this is that compared to the WagonR, where maneuvering is really a breeze and u get the feeling of a smooth drift, it’s not quite so in a Santro...the feeling is almost that of a horse that’s snorting but that’s raw and charged up, all the same
Now, talking about the top speeds, I guess Santro’s a bit well off in this dept....i myself have touched 160kmph on Mysore road with 5 fatties on board :) But a word of caution, the vibrations get pretty intense and if u run your fingers thru the gear shaft, u feel as though it might crack up any moment...! The WagonR in turn does 135-140 without much of a whimper, but u start feeling dizzy and a little unstable at that point and invariably harbor thoughts abt a topple and things like that....Hope i’ve made myself more clear...Santro’s more stable and safe compared to the breezy but weightless WgonR experience.
Talking abt the steering response now....WagonR scores any day over Santro in this category. The EPS really makes things a breeze. Not that Santro’s steering is bad, but just that the EPS seems to be a more friendly technology that it’s Hydraulic counterpart.
Aesthetic and overall look and feel
Santro is really neat...neat...neat...the overhead mirror is more precise, the side mirrors more compact, the headlights a tad more bright and the horn a bit more effective. Where probably WagonR scores over would be the crispiness of the knob to switch from high/low beam. the same in Santro loses its compact ’click’ after a while.
Seating Arrangement / Driving comfort.
There’s nothing much that differentiates these. The vision from the driver’s nest is probably a little more commanding in the WagonR.
The thrill ride.
I would say, it’s a bit more thrilling to drive the WagonR, for the simple reason that u get a feeling of glide at 50-60kmph. as a result of that u tend to feel that u can always take of the other expensive road bullies anytime. With Santro, as I said before....it’s like driving a horse that’s always working overtime to make u happy.
Milage
Much of the milage depends on where and what time of day one drives in, really. But I get the feeling Santro’s just 1 Kmpl ahead in this category.