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.

Car	Ford Fiesta	Honda City	Hyundai verna	Chevrolet Aveo
Price	7,65,000	N/A (but 8L approx.)	N/A (but 7.2L approx.)	7,00,000
Engine Technology	Duratec	i-DSI	VTVT (Variable timing valve train)	VGIS (Variable Geometry intake system)
Engine capacity (cc)	1596	1497	1599	1598
Power (PS@RPM)	101@6500	77@5000	103@5500	102@6000
Torque (NM@RPM)	146@3400	125@2700	146@3000	147@3500
Fuel system	SEFI	i-DSI	N/A	Sequencial Fuel Injection with 32 bit ECM
Turning radius (m)	4.9	4.9	5	5
Average (kmpl)	11	12	11	11
Length (mm)	4282	4390	4130	4310
Width (mm)	1686	1695	1695	1710
Height (mm)	1468	1495	1490	1505
Wheel base (mm)	2486	2450	2500	2480
Ground clearance (mm)	168	160	170	181
Music system	6 CD player with RADIO (no Mp3)	Radio + CD/MP3 player with remote	Radio+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…