'Xing' ing in the rain !. Review on Hyundai Santro Xing eRLX

Finally a peaceful day at the office.. its been ages since I had time to fire up the browser & check out MS.. Earlier this week I saw a review about the Hyundai Santro on MS.. found it a little contrary to my opinion of a Santro.. As the saying goes.. opinions are like a**holes & everyone has one.. this one is mine.. [opinion I mean ;-) ] With my work hours becoming crazier by the day, I could no longer perform my duty as my wifey’s chauffeur effectively.. so she decided to take to the wheel herself & we went car shopping. Our criteria was ’ease of use’ , ’reliable’, ’low maintenance’ & ’safety’.. we short-listed the Fiat Palio, Santro , Indica, Alto & WagonR.. Fiat : I say "Where is a Fiat dealer ?" Indica : Wifey says - "Forget it ! I don’t want a Taxi !" Alto : Both of us say - "Nope.. !" WagonR : Wifey says - "I don’t like the shape" So we decided to check out the Santro Xing eLRX.. which was recently released then.. Took a test drive & got hooked ! We booked a Xing XG..the car was delivered in a week.. As we had a little spare cash left out in our budget, we added in a few accessories to the car. Changed the rims to League alloys, tyres were upsized from 155/70 to 175/60/R13 Bridgestone Potenza R3s, stock air-filter changed to a K&N High flow, a Sony MP3 player, a JBL 4 channel amp, Blaupunkt speakers in the front & custom built boxes in the rear, 3M tints & a few other knickknacks. The car has been in regular use ever since & turned one year old last month. In one year we have managed to cover 28000+ KMS ! With a few trips to Hyderabad, a couple of trips to chennai, one trip to Goa & a trip to Ooty thrown in. Mileage in the City is around 13 - 14 [with AC] , 15 - 16 [without AC], on the highway we have managed to get around 20 !!! [without AC, highway driving] Reliability : Superb ! in 28000 + Kms, we never had the car giving us any problems. The only maintenance required is to follow the periodic checkups & oil top-ups. Sometimes you dont even have to open the hood for months! The Bridgestone Potenza tubeless tyres are superb, road-grip is really enhanced by the R3s, the flip side is that because of the increased tyre resistance, your fuel economy will drop by a Km or two. Also, if you manage to hit a serious pot-hole at 60 - 70 & feel that gut wrenching ’thud’ then get down & check.. you probably will have side-wall damage on the tyre.. i.e. a bulge on the tyre-wall. So watch-out for that pothole !!!! Nevertheless.. over 28000kms & just one puncture :-) That’s tubeless radials for you.. NVH [Noise Vibration Harshness] A cousin of mine once remarked about his penchant for upgrading to the latest car audio systems available in the market.. his logic was "As the car gets older, it starts creaking & groaning all over.. which increases year after year.. so you need to go in for loud & louder audio systems to mask the sound the car makes.." Coming back to the Santro, I do make it a point to drive around in complete silence every once in a while [especially over rough patches] to check for anything that is loose / rattling , that needs to be fixed. Thankfully, I haven’t had anything major till date.. there was a rattle in the front, near the dash.. which turned out to be a loose speaker & a strange noise in the back that turned out to be from the alloy wheel in the spare wheel-well. 1 year old, the car doesn’t have any rattling.. so appreciate the good build quality. One sore point though.. if you are into music with some good bass thrown in.. & you are using an amp.. you’ll find that the rear door tends to jar a lot.. I tried some extra beading etc. but doesn’t help. Thankfully, you cannot hear the jarring so badly from the inside as much as from the outside.. [That explains the weird look I get at traffic signals when I am playing loud music with the windows rolled up :-) ] Comfort : Driver & Front passenger comfort is second to none.. the seats tend to be a little stiff.. but thanks to the higher seating position, under thigh support is really good & even with sustained driving of over 500kms at a stretch, you dont feel as much of a fatigue as you would in a Zen or an Esteem. The front passenger can use a old pillow to prop-up his/her feet while driving long distances.. & that’s comfort redefined. Back passengers, thats a different story.. since the car is quite ’front-heavy’ the rear passengers get thrown all around if you take a speed bump / pot-hole at anything over 20kmph. I once had my nephew hurt himself hitting the roof when I went over an unmarked speed breaker one night. The car is best suited for city driving with 4 onboard or long distance driving with two onboard. Back seat is quite comfortable for two passengers.. just make sure that the front seats are not pushed back too far.. else the rear passengers will not have enough legroom. Since there are no side / centre arm-rest built in, makes sense to have a bolster/big pillow in the middle to be used as a arm-rest during long drives. Performance : Quite a zippy little car ! I had a drag with a friend in a Zen & beat him fair & square thrice ! The 1.1 engine gives a decent performance.. in-city driving doesnt require too much of a gear drops from 4th / 3rd. I wish the gear shift was slick like in the Swift, but it’ll do for now... That said, there is no problem with either power or overtaking with a full complement of 5 adults [3 on the plumper side ;-) ]Though as a habit, I always switch off the AC while overtaking or speeding-up, the car does quite well on the highway without the AC-off routine.. AC performance is superb, its been tested in the sweltering heat of Hyderabad in peak summer & the high humidity of Chennai too.. with all the pollution in Bangalore, 98% of the time I drive around with the windows up & AC on.. & no complaints at all..! Mileage : As mentioned earlier, Mileage in the City is around 13 - 14 [with AC] , 15 - 16 [without AC], on the highway we have managed to get around 20+ [without AC, highway driving]. The mileage should improve if you are running on stock tyres [155/70], however the drop in mileage by a km or two is worth upgrading to the 175/60/R13 tyres [Bridgestone Potenza R3s] Living with the Santro : A nice family car.. a great first car for the first time buyer & a practical second car for your better half. A good amount of boot space, easy to drive around in the city, good for the occasional long drive.. decent mileage & low on maintenance. All in all.. I am happily Xinging around.. A foot-note : If you do change from stock rims to alloys, just check if your standard wheel-spanner can still work.. most probably it wont. So you’ll have to buy a special tubular spanner & a handle, meant for alloy wheels. I discovered it the hard way.. the one puncture that I had in the Santro was on a lonely road, in the middle of the night & I discovered that I cant use the spanner I had.. luckily I always carry a small foot-pump [Picked it up for $5 in the US.. costs around Rs.300 - 500 in Bangalore].. I tried inflating the tyre & it held pressure long enough for me to reach an Reliance-A1 where I found another guy with alloys who had a tubular spanner.