Well, I am a proud owner of Opel corsa 1.4 GSI (52K run - 2005 model). My car has everything that I can expect from a Sedan. The luxury-drivability-space-comfort-mileage, everything Though couple of things I missed --
1) more than 5 passengers
2) GC.
Continuing my loyal ownership to Corsa, I was thinking of buying Scorpio/Safari/Innova/Xylo and thought of waiting for Aria.
Sorry for all these background stuff.. just wanted to let you guys know, my interests in Aria.
It was 8:30 pm in the evening, I saw two flashy/unbearable headlights approaching me and a golden colored Aria stopped at the pavement near me. I quickly jumped into the middle compartment ( the front seat space was occupied with lot of equipments, probing materials etc). As we had decided, we headed towards nearby highway-kind-of-road. While on the way it reached 0-80 in absolutely no time. Chilling AC was on and it didn’t look like the driver is struggling with gear shift even after immediate stops.
On highway, a little flooring and Aria was touching 140KM/hr. I requested him to calm down. I was constantly worrying as it is a test-drive vehicle, may be the brakes of the big van are not tested properly. Fortunately, everything went fine during our ride.
I could not get to drive the vehicle though I spent lot of time understanding the vehicle so as to share with you all.
Performance/pick-up --> Breathtaking. The test vehicles these guys drove on highways, they touch 140+ consistently.
Mileage --> Generally test vehicles are driven pretty rough, still these guys were getting 12 Km/lt on highway.
Suspension --> I didn’t like much as compared to Innova. I felt everything those were on the roads --small potholes, little speed breakers, uneven roads. Probably the vehicle wasn’t well maintained (45K on meter). I would like to test suspension first after the launch.
Interior --> I spent most of my time observing interiors of the car. The feeling inside cabin is much of a Innova like. middle row leg-room was satisfying. Third row will be worst than Innova in terms of space. We may want to place kids under 12 there. Bunch of AC outlets at middle and back. Cooling will definitely faster behind. Good innovation on roof as every person inside cabin will have access to small glove boxes placed at the centre of roof. one may want to replace few of these boxes with movie screen probably.
Few issues I heard, no matter what you do with the front AC outlets, the air flow doesn’t feel above shoulder height on Driver and co-driver seats. During day time, metal-chrome kind of finish on upper side of steering base, causes reflection on speedometer panel, and you don’t see the digits properly. These were to get corrected soon was that I heard.
Well, that was about my quick drive.