Aug 31, 2012 10:50 AM
11991 Views
(Updated Feb 23, 2013 03:50 PM)
Review @ 800Kilometers
Exterior
Great fluidic design compared to the earlier one, no ribs on the bonnet which used to come before, auto folding mirrors with turn indicators. The rear reverse gear light and fog lamps are only one each which could have been provided in pairs. Interior (Features, Space & Comfort)
Everything inside is great. There is ample number of small trays for your smart phone, your second phone, your blackberry, your wife & parents phone, Kids' PSP, wallet etc etc. The good small storage ticket tray is also advantageous and comes in handy. All thats big to go in these places gets into the large cooled glove box. Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox
What an engine this vehicle has got. Its tamed & refined power with all control interfaces with your hands and legs. You could overtake other cars in city as well as in highways in style. While leaving signals and overtaking you could observe the vehicles in the rear view mirror disappear instantly. I have never experienced this as all my old petrol cars, Zen 99, Baleno 06 & Swift 07 have no turbo (My Baleno was and is still a beast). It would not be right to give anything on Fueal Efficiency but my first tank up to tank up showed 16.7 on highway and this, I was told will increase after the first service.
Gear box is amazing and seldom you use 5th and 6th in city unlike petrol cars when you can cruise on 5th in city. However that's not required as all city power is delivered in 1-4. Ride Quality & Handling
Amazing ride quality and the steering is bloody light and unlike inhibitions that this is risky on high speed, it was stable at 100Kmph etc as I have been advised to not overspeed till first service is over.
Final Words: At 9 Lakhs plus, this is definitely an expensive one, but I went for the company car lease and hence it makes sense. This is a true driver's car and if its going to be just you driving about 70 to 80% of the time and you want a car with good mileage, lot of useful features, reasonable boot space ( I put in a full 30kg large suitcase in the rear boot and I just could not believe my eyes), this is the car to go for.
Within a very few seconds you can rev & overtake a train of vehicles.
Areas of improvement They could have given curtain airbags and sunroof as Optional package in the top end diesel. The music system could have come with a remote. The suspensions should have been better as most of the money you pay for is for comfort and that's something that should not be compromised. Auto speed sensing locks could have been added.
The dealer Advaith Hyundai sucked. And he did suck big time. If you are used to selling 100 cars daily and its just one another sale, just outsource it and don't do it for the sake of doing it.
Review @ 3000 Kilometers
The Mileage has not crossed 16.7 Kmpl which is disappointing as Swifts give about 20 plus on highways. Very important thing is I dont get the confident while driving at 120Kmph which I get in my Swift Petrol. After having invested about 9.15 Lacs in a diesel car and not feeling confident is something I don't buy. Degrading the comfort rating from 5 bars to 4 bars as the suspension is not great.
@4340 Kilometers, slightly major accident with front condenser, radiator, head lamps, bonnet all getting crushed... No injuries luckily and I was alone. @ the shed for 20 days not because of the complexity of the fault but because of spares shortage. Surprising that they said no spares for new i20 but only available for the older one. 70k was the bill and no spending was done as mine is a company car lease program one.
@9100Kms, the car just feels like how it was when I took out of showroom. 9k done in 3 months with one of the Apollo tyres conking off.
Mileage averaging at 18kmpl on highways.
On very bad roads of Chennai, I get a shocking mileage of 10.5Kmpl. This is not something for which I bought a diesel hatchback with two petrol cars already in my stable.
Highway drives are a song and the average speed I do is about 100 to 110Kmph. Top speed of 160Kmph reached once to show Honda City that Diesel cars are in a different league. But to be honest that Honda City was loaded fully with 4 passengers and I was solo. I had to slightly slog to catch him. In the race a Volkswagen Vento & Chevy Cruze ( my favourite ) were not spared as well.
If you are not looking for a fully loaded car, go for the magna one and save money. If not then Asta diesel is the best to go for. Clearly a top end hatch back....
Adjusting to cruise is difficult because of the features I got used to in i20. I am not going to write what Cruze feels like as that would not qualify to the title of this review. Features like a large foot pedal adjacent to the clutch is very useful during the highway cruise.The redial and call disconnect buttons tagged to the bluetooth hands free is very useful.There are about 5 storage points with partitions to keep enough stuffs.The cooled glove box is a very useful thing and the space is very large
So in summary if you got that enough budget, I would suggest you stretch and go for the i20 fully loaded as the features are all must have and definitely not luxury stuff alone.
