I needed a car mainly for ferrying kids to school, only about 2km per day, so I did not look at diesel. I was looking for sensible VFM car for boring city drives only. My budget was 5-6 lakhs and the shortlist was i10(automatic, for spouse), new Swift, Liva V, and Indica Vista.
Tata was ruled out by many stories of niggling trouble and bad service. Swift was ruled out because of crammed interiors, and long waiting time. I was all but decided on i10(AT) which was about exactly matched in price with the Liva V. Unfortunately, we have two six feet people in the family. If I adjusted the i10 driver seat to be comfortable, no adult could sit behind. Also, the i10 is a strictly four-adult car. Otherwise, the i10 wins easily over the Liva: stronger engine, much nicer throttle and clutch control, more compact in both width and length by a few inches, which makes all the difference in a city. If you will carry people under 5 feet 9 inches, don’t even think about the Liva, just go for the i10, which is clearly destined to be the next Swift.
Within the Liva family, V is a no-brainer for the 5-6 lakh budget segment. All that the VX gives you is a DVD player and some eye-candy trim(which easily hits bumps, by the way, lucky I did not get a VX) and a garish red and black interior. V is where you want to stop.
The Liva is an ok car, but only just ok. It is definitely not a "real" Toyota-class car, and not good value for money. I bought it purely because of my height requirements.
No one seems to have pointed out the major problem with the ECU and electronic throttle control. Toyota is infamous for weird drive-by-wire throttle(accelerator) and this is a problem on the petrol Liva. Brake crisply and downshift from 2 to 1 as you are entering a parking lot. 20-40 seconds later(perhaps as you are carefully easing into a slot) the engine suddenly surges by 200-300 rpm without any driver action. You need to be quick with the brake at this moment to prevent 1-2 feet of unintended travel. I experienced this with two different test drive cars as well as my own, so it is not an individual unit fault. I asked Toyota about this but they are completely silent.
https://picoauto.com/applications/electronic-throttle-control.html
https://autosafety.org/lawmaker-toyota-knew-electronic-defects
https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~raj/toyota.html
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Fn_cDN56Oy8
I have never experienced the rpm surge problem in any other car I have driven: Swift, WagonR, i10, or Santro.
In general the car feels quite underpowered. Turn into a 10 degree upslope on 2nd gear and floor the gas pedal. The car will not accelerate at all but hold even speed. On level ground, downshift to 2 or 1 well within rev range and release the clutch gently, and you can still feel the engine judder and readjust-no idea why.
The car has been babied since it was bought, no rough driving, no abuse. Even so, the lever of the handbrake has come loose(moves around and rattles) when the handbrake is not engaged. It is ok when engaged.
I have heard a lot about how soft and smooth the gear is. Not true. Felt about the same as a WagonR or Estillo to begin with. After about a month, 1st gear is suddenly very difficult to engage unless at dead stop. Again, absolutely no abuse or gear grinding happened. Always driven very gently. Clutch and gear feel is ok in general, and the pickup in first gear is good, but definitely the experience is not as nice or reassuring as the i10(manual).
Rain water collects below the headlamps, in a gap between the headlamp acrylic and the painted body below. This dirty water naturally turns brown, which looks very ugly below a 2-month old headlamp.
Mileage is about 13 km/l stop-and-go, hardly any AC use, so that’s fairly reasonable. Will improve as the engine settles.
I keep seeing relatively inconsequential comments about cheap plastic interiors or NVH(as if you are driving in silent wilderness!). But I have not seen anyone report the more important issues above.
In summary, the Liva is a very decent option compared to moving into the sedan segment. I would claim the Liva is overall a better built car than the new Swift. But it surely loses to i10, unless you are too tall to fit into the i10. However, if you expect real Toyota build quality in a Liva, you will be disappointed.