Black Beauty. Review on Chevrolet Aveo

After 2 moths of research and test drives, I bought my Black Aveo 1.4 in January 2008 from Sundram Motors Chennai. So it has been 2 months and I’m completely satisfied with it. It is performing as expected and I believe it is the best one can get for that price. My process started in October when I moved back from UK to settle in India. I was driving a BMW 3 series which I adored. I test drove Honda Civic in January 2007 when I visited India and found it to be really good and felt that the drive is as good as it is in my BMW.

When I returned back I felt that I have lost track of the Indian Car market. So started my research to pick the right one. I test drove Verna petrol. The pick up was excellent and the model I preferred costed around 8 lakhs. I was told that there wouldn’t be any corporate discounts because it is a relatively new model. Anyways it is one of the best in the class and it was on my list.  I also tried the fiesta. Felt it to be just normal car and since there were many in Chennai roads, I was reluctant to join the crowd.

I didn’t try the new City because I totally disagree with its shape. I admit it has a classic engine and the mileage in enviable. The new City is a based on a hatch back model which is in UK and other European countries. I loved the old model City which was discontinued to create space for the Civic. The reason to do that was strategic. If Honda had continued with the old model City there would have been very few takers for the Civic because price the difference would have been 3 to 4 lakhs where the City would have been value for money.

I was attracted to Aveo because the car was from the stables of Italdesign studios in Turin, Italy and was designed by Design guru Giorgetto Giugiaro's himself. GM had also invested heavily in Aveo and offers it at this price to build its market in India. This is because of GM’s business strategy that India would be their best option to turn their fortunes around. But some reviews said that the gear box is notchy and the pick is bad. So even thought the price was very attractive I ruled it out and decided to go with Verna. But then I stumbled on the article from GM and found that there is a new variant which was launched in September. GM had rectified all these problems and the gear shift ratio had been changed to give better pick up. So when I visited GM I found that Aveo had better interiors than the other and the price was almost 1.5 lakhs cheaper than Verna. The sales person was very kind and answered all my queries. I requested a test drive but the car was not available. He promised to bring it to my office which was done promptly. The car was really smooth to drive. No problems with the gear shift but the pick up was not as good as it was in Verna.  But in Chennai’s traffic the pick did not matter much.  . But then they offered my 40k corporate discount. That was a killer blow. I felt it makes more sense to buy the Aveo  save 2 lakhs. So came back did some more research read lots of reviews and then booked the car in a week.

I decided to go with the 1.4 because of the fuel efficiency and the price. Since black was my preferred color the absence of body colored door handles and mirrors didn’t make any difference. I added a rear spoiler to make it look sporty and got a discount on it as well.

The car was delivered promptly. The  next day I noticed that there were some scratches on the bonnet and the window button on the passenger door was missing. I phoned the sales person and he promised to fix it any time. The drive in the city was smooth but didn’t get a chance to go more that 80km. So took it for a drive to Yelagiri to test it in the highway and the hills. The B’lore highway was as good as the M roads in UK. (But people really don’t know how to drive I these road.)

The car reached 160km and no problems. It was still smooth. I had to break suddenly at around 120km when a truck pulled in. The wheels locked and car skidded a little (no ABS) but it was steady and manageable. So good stability at high speeds. The heavy A-pillar obscures the driver’s view when cornering and especially climbing hills. So mind the blind spot always. Apart from that no issues as of now. The mileage in the Chennai city is 10km/liter (that’s what I expected when they told 12/liter). Didn’t check it in the highways but guess to be around 15km.

All issues were rectified in the first service but the delivery was delayed by a day because they had to fix the paint job. So I am happy with the car and would definitely recommend it to anyone. Even though it is not as good as my previous one it is the best one can get for that money in India.

P.S. Balck Color - Looks awesome but very difficult to maintain