Well, I guess just like all other ppl who wrote in this column..I too had to choose between the Indica, WagonR and the Xing.
I zeroed in on the Santro because of the feedback I recieved from a cpl of frnds of mine who are mechanical engineers working for Hyundai.The Indica had 50% good and 50% bad feedback and the WagonR had no backspace left when I pulled the driver seat back, gears were mushy too.
So I bought the Santro Xing XO with ABS , september 2005, Sony XPLOD 400 watts speakers and the Basic Music system(Trident did not allow me to even choose or upgrade).Seat covers were bought(paid for) by me(chosen by trident again).
The Pros:
Mileage:15.60 KMPL(Average, I have got 16.2 KMPL too) with & without AC.Initially it was very bad(7-8 KMPL) but that changed a lot after the first service .The service engineer said he did nothing about fuel control since it is an MPFI engine.But, whatever, there was a huge big change after the first service.Specially since Shell Oil does not seem to cheat its cutomers of Petrol(Liquid Gold).
Gear Shift : Another good point to credit is that the Gears of the Santro have relatively higher torque and so the Car will pick up smoothly even if you shift to 4th at 25 kmph.
The Cons:
Clutch Issues: The clutch cannot be used in half clutch mode or for that matter it cannot be over used - which is exactly the opposite of what is required for Bangalore Traffic.I have got my clutch cable adjusted 2 times in 2.5 months and 4000 Kms.Different service engineers say different things, one says the cable has expanded and the other says that the clutch is wearing off - I donnow whom to believe.
Service Center Overload : Most of the time all the Trident service centers are overloaded with cars and the best part is that these cars cannot be serviced else where.So positively that means taking half a day of work to get the car serviced.
Drive Comfort: The eRLX Xing is a 32 micro core controlled car.This added with the intelligence on board leaves a lot of decision making to the controller.WHich is why , for those of you who have noticed, The car mileage comes down once you pull out the Battery terminals - The memory gets erased and the core starts the learning process from scratch - The drivers shift patterns and the average speed et al.Now coming back to the point, This very intelligence sometimes would leave the gear and the Steering vibrating a bit more than usual specially when u negotiate turns curves etc - just because there is an extra bit of power required to touch the torque of the gear you have downshifted to - The controller does not do anything abt it and the driver gets all the vibrations in the process.Hyundai , definitely needs to do something abt this issue.I say this because my car is way smooth sometimes and a bit shaky sometimes.Hyundai engineers have nothing to say abt it.
All in all I would give the Santro Xing erlx 7.5/10 as an average family car.