Hi All, I thought of having a car for myself. As everybody does, I started my search at a used car showroom. But later I thought, why can’t I go for a new one? So I started ratings of all cars every where. I viewed all reviews on MS on almost all cars in my budget range.
Finally I narrowed to i10, Alto and Zen Estilo. Then I further reviewed the cars and I had a test drive on them. Then I felt Zen Estilo suits well for me and my pocket. So I campleted the loan fomalities and got the vehicle delivered on 13-Feb-08 from DD Motors Delhi. The dealer is also very good and the executives are well trained & explained everything clearly about the vehicle.
I booked black color Vxi model w/o ABS. I thought of having the Blue but the sales manager said black will have more execuive looks than blue. So I preferred that. May be a valentines’ day gift for my wife and myself. And about the car. Its really great car. It looks very attractive.
The running is so smooth. This is the first car for me and I am new to driving. And that too on the BUSY Delhi Roads. I never felt difficulty in handling this guy even in most jammed roads of Delhi. Its average is excellent 15-16 kmpl with a/c. All my friends said that my car is having excellent mileage when compared with their cars.
And the actual pleasure of driving I got is when drove this guy all the way to Jaipur on a tour with my family. You cannot resist yourself of pressing the throttle past 100km/h. The road is very good High way and the only competition I found on the road with my car is another Zen Estilo going to Jaipur. While returning we travelled in night from Ajmer to Delhi. Even big cars are behind my car. My wife and kid slept and woke up only at home. They never felt like they are in a moving car. Its soo smooth. I got an excellent average of 19 KMPL with A/C on that trip. Regularly I get an average of 15-16 kmpl with a/c on Delhi roads.
Its steering is so easy to control and you can maneuver in any kind of road and traffic. We can skip the patholes on the road very easily even when noticed suddenly. I also travelled to Haridwar-Rishikesh-Dehradun for visit. In Rishikesh we travelled to Neelkanth shivalayam on the hills. The ghat road 25-30 kms travelling is very convinient and I was able to control the car very easily on the ghat also. And now I plan every trip in this car. Its so convinient and the drive never gives me fatigue feel. The seating arrangement for driver is so good that you’ll never get fatigued of driving long. The Leg room is very good. The boot space is excellent and you can dump as much luggage you may need on your long trips. The interiors are excellent in its class. They are different from the regular black interiors in other cars of its class. The road view is excellent in its class. You can just identify so easily how many inches gap is there between yours and the car in front. The aerodynamic front gives less resistance to air ao this improves the stability of the car on high speeds. Some people say it is shaking / vibrating on high speeds. I had reached to speeds of 120KMPH. But still it is not having any such type of problems.
Till now I have travelled around 9000Kms in this car and It never troubled me.
It has the advantage of Maruti low maintenance and any where repairable service.
The only problem is the gear shift rod touches the co-passenger thighs when operating in 1st & 2nd gears. Maruthi should look into this matter on priority. I wanted to install musical horns and other extra lights for long distance travells. But due to restrictions of Marutis’ warranty policy I could not do that.
Maruti can also look into to strengthening the dashboard as it sometimes vibrate while accelerating in 4th gear.
Other than these the car is the best of its class and has advantage of Marutis.
Date:28-11-08
Hey All would like to add some more stuff here. I drove the car from Chandigarh to Nahan. Actually our plan is to attend a friends marriage their and on the way we thought of visiting Renuka lake. On the way one of our friend took us to a Gurudwara Poanta sahib on the bank of Yamuna. From there we started to Renuka. We are in two cars one is Hundai’s i10 and mine Estilo. We travelled on a ghat road from there to Renuka. The ghat road is so hopeless road with lots of slides and muddy road with lots of pits and stones. Still this car never gaveup. The road is so narrow that if another car comes in opposite direction you will have to think twice before you give side to that car. If you just go a little bit towards your left you will be falling into a deep valley and nobody can get there to pickup you. But Zen-Estilo can be handled very effectively on such roads also. It can beat any type of roads. I am able to control on the ghat road even at nights very easily. Thanks to its electronic Power steering.
I recommend to all who want to zoom to anywhere in their own cars. See the pics of the road.
Regards
Srinivasa Reddy