Well, after researching all I could about cars and about diesel and petrol prices and everything even related to it, I grudgingly decided to buy a swift vdi.
The demo car I had earlier testdriven wasnt very impressive, so I was still having lots of second thoughts about it.
but then I did the next best thing, I changed my dealer.
Man, one test drive and I was dying to buy it at the spot. the only problem was avalaibility. took lots of approaches and many phone calls later, I finally got the beauty after 2 days on 10 june 2008.
its extremely kewl and dashing. excellent performance. I could never believe that a diesel car could perform so excellently.
have driven 6000 kms in approxmately 2 months.
AC is very very effective, handling could have been better, but thats cos I didnt upgrade the tyre cos I wanna do it with the alloys and it ll cost around 30 grand and I didnt wanna invest so much now.
regarding milage. First 1500 km gave me 21 on highway and 18 in city, then it surprisingly dropped after the first free service to 18/16 on highway and city, respectively.
during the second servise I mentioned it to the servise guy and man, its back to 22/18. they said due to rains the sensor wasnt working effectively so they cleaned it and now it should perform effectively.(whatever the heck its supposed to mean). but the main thing is the performance and average have definately increased.
another thing I would like to mention is the dealer is actually taking pains to ensure customer comfort. I get a call reminding me of service. I can book service in advance, they keep calling to give tips for rains, more milage and stuff. pretty neat, duh!