Aug 31, 2006
Among the first buyers of Wagon-R DuO in Bangalore, it’s quite early for to give a review on this vehicle.
I appreciate M/s. Pratham Motors for keeping the promise of delivery. The free basic accessories Pratham gave with the Rs. 4.33 car are third class (specially the floor mats). Very poor!! Pratham Motors are known for giving poor quality free accessories. The free Teflon coating offered with the car looks good so far, hopefully is has been done by Dupont coating (and not a simple wax polish, as it is very difficult to find the difference). Better bargain for 3M (RE-35) sun films, wheel caps and day night mirror than Teflon coating.
I had given the booking amount to Bimal Auto Agency earlier, but they offered 4-5 weeks delivery time. Since Pratham offered 3 days delivery so I switched over from Bimal. Now I came to know that you cannot witness the service as it happens. Bimal allows to customer to even sit in the car, complete transparency. Pratham have quite arrogant Team Leader, who will give all sort of excuses to get rid of your problems. I think somebody had earlier talked about Pratham, that how these guys give you 3rd class things as a part of accessories offered before the actual sale. After than their real @#$& face come in front of you.
The power of car on petrol and LPG seems to be almost at par without AC. EPS is effective on slow speeds; on high speed it is stiff (Designed like that, for stability on high speeds). 2nd gear is a bit stiff but other gears are very smooth.
The spare wheel arrangement is not very intelligently done. MUL should have put some more efforts to make it smarter. Due to this arrangement you cannot put large size speakers on the hatch door. :-((. You shall have to spend about Rs.1500 to make an arrangement for the rear speakers. If you decide to put on hatch door then it eats-up 1.5 inch of vital boot space.
I have done 110 km in 2 days. Can’t say anything about consumption, but have started maintaining the log and will come to know the consumption soon. The MUL catalogue doesn’t say anything about the LPG/Petrol switch. The dealer says to start the car in petrol and then switch to gas. The indication of LPG blink initially then becomes stable what does it mean. I don’t have any answer to it yet. Some level of automation is done in the LPG/Petrol switch but I am not clear about it, neither the user manual says anything about it.
Updated on: 1st September
The car ALWAYS starts on petrol irrespective of the selection you have done (Petrol or LPG). After a particular RPM it switches over to LPG. At that instance you shall listen a solenoid valve opening from the rear LPG tank. You shall feel for half a second that car is stopping, but then it becomes ok
I was bit concerned about the lubrication of the valves inside the combustion chamber. Petrol have some lubrication, which LPG doesn’t, I simply wonder what shall happed in the future. MUL 1800180180 didn’t have a clue when I asked them. It is not a technical service; rather those chaps are not made aware of the Duo.
Another problem I faced in the new Wagon-R design is no provision of speaker fitting in the rear hatch door. I have got woofer (6inch x 9 inch) fixed on the hatch door, but had to open the spare wheel from the arrangement and kept is loose boot. MUL has not given a thought for making a space for fixing the woofer in the hatch door. I had to get some part of hatch cut from inside to fix the woofer. Probably not every body can see BRAND NEW car being cut. (Fiat leaves wire for woofer). Make sure you take small male thimbles while getting front speakers fixed; normally the speaker fitting guys strip the wire and simply wind the wires, which is really poor, and doesn’t last long apart from the drop of audio signal. Please witness when music system is being fixed; make sure the guys are not stripping the wire, as the music company gives you every thing ready (except the male thimbles or lugs). For the front speaker choose ones with only 2 mounting screws like Pioneer. I took JVC speaker, which come with 4 mounting screws, which the fitters have cut in a very ugly way. Pratham Motors offered me free fitting but was charging Rs600 for the hatch board where the speaker shall be fitted. This audio system guy charged me total Rs. 675 (workmanship, acoustic board and antenna) in Koramangala, BDA complex. Pioneer system (8K with 1 year warranty, 5.6K without warranty).
Friends sincerely please go for small size speakers on the rear it is better or see if you can fix on the roof area.
Now I am planning to modify the spare wheel arrangement MUL has provided. Shall have to incline so that the spare wheel flushes with the rear seat or at least adequate clearance for the woofers.
Updated on 29 September
I have calculated an average of 14.5 km per lt on LPG with 25% time AC ON in the city driving conditions.
I am planning for loooong drive and possible looking for more accurate results of consumption and stability on high speeds. I havn’t exceeded 60 kmpr hr till now to tune the engine. But looking forward to touch 120 kmph or so.
Updated on 25 May 2007
I have clocked 8500 kms on this car so far.
I made a return trip from Bangalore to Mysore (door to door 256 kms) with Rs 460 of LPG. Really good !!
Highways with 4 adults and 35% time AC switched ON, still gives about 15 km per litre. This comes to Rs1.90 to Rs 2.00 per kilometre on LPG.
In one trip to Pondy with LPG tank full gave me about 368 kms with 4 adults and AC switched on for 30% time of the journey. In absence of LPG I drove from Pondy to Bangalore on petrol. Rs1000 worth of petrol coolly made the 350 kms (305 + 45 kms to some other place) with 50% time AC switch on.
I am getting some rattling in within city driving. May be I have to cross the Narakapura Road (actually it is called Kanakapura Road) every day and loosing some rivets of the front doors, specials the left side ones. Other wise on highways it is smooth and quite stable too.
MUL should seriously think about making proper arrangement of the stupney. If you fit the music system to the hatch door, the hatch starts resonating at some frequency with the speakers. You do not enjoy music as much.
Doring lining plastic is not very good I reckon, especially the ones below the rear doors.
On petrol mode absolutely no problem while you need more power. On LPG you have to be bit gentle on the accelerator.
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