*Written on August 7th, 2008
Finally I took a Vdi. Its a fantastic car. I had booked a Vxi on April 10th. Initially I had booked a Vxi but then changed my mind. If you dont have a fancy for the colour(willing to take any colour) or the variant(willing to take Ldi or Vdi or Zdi) you can get the car within 15-20 days in Kolkata. Thats what happened to me. I changed my booking to a Sovereign Blue Vdi when I heard that there was this unallotted car with the dealer and I got it on April 27th - just 17 days after my booking. Iits a fantastic car. I have done 3700 km till date. Averages about 16 km in the busy Kolkata roads with AC on. The in-dash music system is also good and can play any CD format(MP3, WMA etc). Front seat comfort is excellent and rear seat comfort for 3 adults is also quite good. Some small but useful touches make it very people friendly like the audible alarm if you forget to take the key out of the ignition or switch off your headlights. The lights in the instrument panel can be dimmed and this is quite useful for night time highway driving since u want to focus on the road more than the glare on the instrument panel. The cabin noise is incredibly low considering its a diesel and my friend who has a Verna diesel has said this! Overall I am quite happy.
*Written on April 10th, 2008
Wanted to upgrade from my 3 and a half years old faithful Hyundai Getz to a sedan within the 6 lac bracket(on road price). My initial research showed up 4 cars in my budget. The Ikon, Accent, Logan and Indigo.
Out of these the Accent and the Ikon were dated and the Indigo had the worst fit and finish. So I was more or less going with the Logan.
And then came the Dzire.
Took a test drive of the Disel Zdi last weekend and loved it. Loved the class leading features like the integrated stereo, climate control etc. Didnt have any second thoughts after this and booked a petrol Vxi today. My commute will be less than 1000 km per month and a petrol made better money sense since I would be keeping the car for less than 5 years anyway.
The only downside now is the waiting period. I am told by the dealer that I will have to wait a minimum of 30 days to get delivery. I have checked with all dealers in the city before booking with a particular dealer and same is the reply everywhere.
In my opinion, Maruti probably underestimated the demand for the Dzire and this is the result.
By the way, the waiting period is lower for the Diesel version.