Sunday, December 17, 2006

cars

Where do i start from?? Ummm, well, I have got a new car - a chevrolet aveo 1.6 LT (limited edition). Pic below...



The question is why did i get an aveo. Why not any other car? First of all, i never wanted to get a small car. I could have got a santro or a zen or an alto or a swift (i would have preferred the swift). But i wanted my car to be loooong. The options that i had were

1. honda city
2. chevrolet aveo
3. ford fiesta (petrol & diesel)
4. hyundai verna (petrol & diesel)
5. hyundai ascent (petrol & diesel)
6. Maruti Esteem
7. Maruti Baleno

If you look at both comfort and mileage and ease of maintenance, the best car is maruti baleno. But i dont like the looks of baleno. Ummm, let me give you some chart for comparison. Which is available from any other site (try carwale.com).

First of all, i was confused between getting a petrol or a diesel car. Though theoretically diesel cars are supposed to be much stronger and last longer(you can refer to my earlier posts for info on this.), but the initial cost and maintenance cost of the car is high. So unless and until you have to drive more than 100 kms in a day, it is not advisable to get a diesel car. The diesel car is approximately 1.2-1.5 lakhs costlier than its petrol counterpart and the maintenance of the diesel comes to be about 3000-5000 Rs extra per year.

If I would have gone for a diesel car, the cost of the fully loaded car would go beyond my budget. I liked the fiesta diesel and the verna diesel. Though the turbo lag is very much pronounced in the verna, but the pickup and power of verna is too good. Since my daily run would not be more than 50 Kms, i decided to go for a petrol car. I could get a fully loaded petrol car for around 7.6 Lakhs. Where as if i get a fully loaded diesel car, it would cost me around 9 lakhs.

This narrowed down my list of options to

1. hyundai ascent viva crdi
2. hyundai verna xxi
3. ford fiesta 1.6 sxi
4. maruti baleno
5. honda city
6. Chevrolet aveo 1.6 LT

Again knocking out what i did not like. Hyundai ascent viva crdi - wonderful car at reasonable price. I could have got this car for 7.2 lakhs and saved on petrol also. But the point was that the crdi technology in this car is somewhat old.

Well, I dont like the "ass" of baleno, so that also gets knocked out. But baleno has the best average among all cars. Baleno would give you an average of 14 in city and 17 on highway. And the interiors of baleno is very classic.

So now i am left with 4 options. And this is the comparison chart i made.

















CarFord FiestaHonda CityHyundai vernaChevrolet Aveo
Price7,65,000N/A (but 8L approx.)N/A (but 7.2L approx.)7,00,000
Engine TechnologyDurateci-DSIVTVT (Variable timing valve train)VGIS (Variable Geometry intake system)
Engine capacity (cc)1596149715991598
Power (PS@RPM)101@650077@5000103@5500102@6000
Torque (NM@RPM)146@3400125@2700146@3000147@3500
Fuel systemSEFIi-DSIN/ASequencial Fuel Injection with 32 bit ECM
Turning radius (m)4.94.955
Average (kmpl)11121111
Length (mm)4282439041304310
Width (mm)1686169516951710
Height (mm)1468149514901505
Wheel base (mm)2486245025002480
Ground clearance (mm)168160170181
Music system6 CD player with RADIO (no Mp3)Radio + CD/MP3 player with remoteRadio+mp3+cd player (4 speakers)Alpine music system with CD+MP3+Radio (6 speakers)


After going through all the options thoroughly, i zeroed down on the aveo. Well why not fiesta - coz it is costly to maintain. Another point was the music system. The music system in fiesta is damn good, but it cannot play mp3s. Imagine creating Audio cds - 6 of them to play in car and they would carry around 60, maybe 70 songs. Whereas one mp3 cd carries more than a 100 mp3 songs of really good quality. And I can cut one whenever i like. And the biggest point is that the ground clearance of aveo is very good. If you drive a fiesta on a road with potholes and mountains, you can expect some scratching on its base. But with aveo, the chances are grossly reduced. Aveo has got all wheel independent suspension - much better to drive on indian roads. And the best part is that it is cheaper than the other cars.

The city is a piece of trash - no power all style. Verna is a also a good car, but the diesel version is a lot better than the petrol one.

Lets see how things go...

3 comments:

Manjari said...

I quite like the comparison that you have put on.

Anonymous said...

good information,it really give you information with a choice to select

Anonymous said...

Hello !!
I bought a Aveo too,, but a 1.4.
The car has all oaded fetures and is the base model.
Mopreover I got it with the german magwheels seen on Jayants car as well as the first in Karnataka to get icy-blue !!!
However Im still not able to understand what the meaning of Variable Geometry Intake System is !!!
Can someone please xplain !!!