For Strain Free City Driving.. Review on Hyundai i10 Sportz 1.2 Kappa2

Friends quite sometime back I had written about my experiences of growing up with reference to the cars that used to be there in those days. Here’s the link if someone would like to read it again.

There I had explained how my 10 years old faithful warhorse the Zen had become too worn out to do duty anymore and I was looking for a replacement for it. I had also explained how after my experience of driving the Ikon 1.6, I was definitely considering only a small hatchback for city driving, commutes to office, for times when the driver doesn’t turn up etc.

So the search was narrowed down to hatchbacks for convenient self city driving. Also other factors that were important to me were high seating ( since with age catching up fast and knees not the same anymore, getting in and out of a low car is a harassment), effective air-conditioning, good after sales as I didn’t want too many hassles for lack of time, good road view, and such. The mileage and the cost though important, did not figure among my top lists.

Given these parameters in the last round I had already test driven the Santro and eliminated it (for detailed reasons, please refer the link above), also the Wagon R, Estilo too did not make the cut. The Spark though a very good car was also eliminated as explained in the same write up. The I 10 (with the 1100 cc engine) was also tried but rejected. That time I had actually liked the Swift and had almost made up my mind about the same, but the decision to purchase kept getting postponed for one or the other reason.

When I had carried out this exercise the last time, the new Estilo the A Star and the I 10 with the kappa (1200 cc) engine were not around. Also the Ritz had yet to invade the market. So this time around I was choosing between the Ritz petrol and Diesel, the I 10 kappa, and the I 20. The Estilo and the AStar were not considered as they are almost like beginner cars and did not fit my requirement. Swift got superseded in favor of the Ritz as the Ritz is a much higher car for one and secondly in the petrol category its new efficient 1200 cc K series engine was the more fuel efficient, the one in swift still supporting the old Esteem 1300 cc engine in that category.

Ritz– I must say this is one hell of a car. Really tall yet so stable. In the petrol version it has a gem of an engine, the new 1200 cc k series engine. I am not going to give any performance parameters here as they are easily available on the net and the maruti websites; however I will only concentrate on my experiences. The engine is very silent and powerful enough to take the load of this car. AC is excellent in the hottest to climes and one hardly needs to go above the second notch. In the top end version i.e. the ZXI there are a lot of goodies including the music system with controls on the steering wheel, height adjustable drivers seat, defogger and rear wiper, air bags, ABS, alloy wheels etc. However this is about 1 Lac more expensive than the base model.

The body of this car seems to be perfectly made for city office commutes. Though the boot is a little small, the space inside and the driving position is almost akin to an SUV. In fact it does give a driving pleasure similar to an SUV to a large extent.

Backed by the Maruti name and so good in price, so versatile a car, and so mature an engine. It should have been my natural choice had I been a decade or two younger as I will explain a little later.

And for anyone doing a lot of driving the diesel model is also excellent. Again the same driving pleasure (very little difference between this and the petrol model), even more fuel economy and the same tried and tested diesel engine that does its job in the Swift. In fact its also a little tweaked here to make it Bharat IV compliant which I heard is going to be done for the Swift in Jan next year.

I 20 – This car looks like a beauty. It’s out of a fairy tale actually, something like the Cinderella’s bogey that was pulled by the horses. It’s loaded with features, comes in petrol and diesel and also in the automatic versions. It’s a far more sophisticated product when compared to the Ritz which though is an excellent car still lacks the finesse of an I 20. It was only for a couple of negatives in it, at least from my point of view, that made me drop this one. And I repeat, the negatives are only from my point of view as otherwise it’s just too good to be true. The first one is that it’s not anywhere as high as the Ritz or even the I 10 and Santro which are all the Tall Boy designs. And as explained earlier that was one of my primary considerations. Also it’s far too expensive and even though budget was not my primary consideration it did not seem to justify its steep price. Also its not so easy to park in and out of busy areas.

I 10 – This car intrigued me. Though its internal space is a constraint, in fact it’s almost the same as the Santro, and I had already rejected it earlier when I tried the one with the 1100 cc engine, this time around it was different. It had a couple of very strong points in its favor, again from my point of view. The first one was the tall boy design. Just what I wanted. Secondly the engine had now been upgraded to the 1200 cc kappa engine. Believe me friends when I test drove this car it was so much more refined than any of the others including the Ritz. It might have been due to its somewhat lesser weight too, but all said and done its engine and the car seem perfectly matched. The interiors were so much better too when compared to what Maruti was providing. And finally what clinched it in its favor was the automatic transmission.

This one sure seemed like the perfect city commute car when I drove it. Lowest turning radius, high seating, perfect view of the road. Extremely responsive power steering beautiful music system, sophisticated high quality interiors and the best of all its automatic transmission. There is absolutely no strain in driving this car. I’m sure the concept of automatic transmission will pick up in India as it seems ideally suited for this place to me. With perinially stuck traffic it’s a no strain car. And the automatic transmission has a lot of features that I was not aware about earlier. There are two separate forward gears and you can start from the first one, called 2, and put into D for normal forward driving. There’s an N for neutral and a P for parking. In addition there’s an overdrive button for getting extra power while overtaking. Also there is a separate gear L for driving up slopes. So that seemed to complete the package. The automatic is available in three trim levels so do check those out in their catalogue or website.

The average is sure likely to be a couple of points less than the regular I10, but then that’s acceptable to me as both I and my wife don’t do that much driving in any case. So having booked this car, I’m now waiting for it to be delivered maybe in around 10-15 days time. Shall again update you after a couple of months of driving.