The right Spark. Review on Chevrolet Spark

It is now about a month after I bought a Spark home and I feel it is a good time I write how I feel about it. We started the process of eveluating which car to buy. The criterias were really straight-forward since would be driven by a learner so priorities in that order were:

1. Good Mileage

   
   




2. Good handling(Power steering was a must).

   
   




3. Decent A/C and power windows.

   
   




4. Looks and Cost.

   
   

I  zeroed down to two cars Alto and Spark. Took test drives drives of both.

Alto's mileage was definatly superior but it lacked in handling . It felt a bit sluiggish on the road but all and all the drive quality was acceptable. Cost  was about 50K lesser than a Spark. But it had to be fitted with power windows. It looks were outdated. It also lacked some basic amenities like left hand rear view mirror which has to be bought. The matting came free. Central locking had to bought. There were no rear wipers.

Spark fared much better in handling . It was really easy to twist and turn this vehical in traffic. It also was better looking than the Alto. It also had tubeless tyres as standard.But it also did not have rear wipers. Come July and the price tag of the Spark fell down substantially(2.66L for base model) and the LS version which I was eyeing for became 25-30K lesser than the pre-offer price and so the price diffrence between an Alto LXi and Spark-LS was 30K.(Hmm not bad). Plus because it was a LS model it had factory fitted power windows, power steering and internally adjustable rear-view mirrors on both sides. I did not opt for their cashless maintanance progrom since the comapny gives a 3years/1, 00, 000km warranty on the car.I purchased mats and central locking from the dealer.

I went for Spark and I think made a right choice. The engine is really smooth sometimes I get confused whether the engine is no or not. I read about the A/C making a lot of noise frankly I do not notice this problem in my car. I have driven about 1000kms in last 30 odd days in various conditions like on the expressway  or in the city I see no reason to complain about any loss of power or pick-up. I delivers what it promises, 63bhp which is comparable to Santro. It is really too early to talk about milage since I have topped up the car only once. The turning indicator lever and the wiper lever are on the opposite sides of conventional Indian cars in the Sparkso first couple of times I turned on the front wiper when I wanted to turn right and turned on the indicator when I wanted to clean the front windshield glass.

The dealer Pashankar Auto at Baner, Pune, services were upto the mark and I got the car delivary withen 4 days along with RTO passing and number plate, with a small pooja and a box of sweets,  so the dealer experience was  good  . The first servicing(it was more of a check-up) had no hassles at all. Pashakar Auto's driver came at exactly 9.30am(which was the promised time) and gave back the car at 4.30pm in the evening. I also go my RC book or rather the smart card on the same day.

There were ofcourse a few slip-ups from the accessories dept in the showroom when they forgot to put the locking pin on the rear-window handle which fell off before I could notice it and the bumper guard was fitted badly so it came out. These issues were promptly rectified by the showroom guys when I showed them.

Over all I feel Spark is a good car and a real value for money.