Hi Guys,
PS: Review posted here is my personal opinion please visit concerned dealers for more info.
I have purchased Chevrolet Beat Lt from Trident Chevrolet, Kalyan nagar. Let me give brief description about different stages of my hunt first new car.
1. Hunting for car:
I have been checking reviews of cars through Team-bhp for first hand review of car by their owners. My requirement would be for weekend use of car, whenever we need to go to church and go out on short trips to city center for shopping as my main mode of transport is pulsar 150 cc. We have Santro without power steering and Honda city. I have practiced in Santro, but it is real tough to park or take turns in a car without power steering and Honda city is my brothers. Before I decided buy new car i never drove car alone without assistance, so basically i'm newbie in driving. However I loved torqy nature of santro, with no visible loss of power while fully loaded with 5 passengers. I initial had 4 lakhs as budget for new car, which was enough for entry level cars. So my shortlisted cars is as follows.
1. Alto VXI
My friend owns a Alto, he is mighty pleased with his car. I found most of the reviews favorable to it. However with BS4 version being brought in force, with K series engine being introduced in August and I felt it is too late for my requirements. Personally I felt car's outer design has not changed since several years and it has got very cramped interiors. Car doesn't come with body colored bumpers even in the top end. In terms of accessories it has almost nothing given as OEM except key less entry. Car engine is peppy, its fun to drive in city traffic with awesome mileage. I had plans to buy this if my budget got reduced due to some unforeseen circumstances.
2 Wagon R
I disliked it right from the beginning, as brick shape car was not in my favor. It had very cheap plastics inside and peppiness in Wagon R was less compared to Alto as it had additional weight. I also found it had issues with gear box and boot space is not that great for car of this size. New Wagon R was launched after I bought Chevy beat, however i felt Maruthi has wasted R&D effort by reproducing same brick like car but with changed front end. I followed New Wagon R near marathahalli road, it was huge and imposing with oversized windows, it was as if an SUV. My wife outrightly rejected Wagon R because of brick shape.
3. Volkswagen Polo
It is really good car, it was very sturdy looking car with mile crunching engine. I havent seen the car from inside as high end model was too pricey. If my budget was more I would have definitely bought Polo.
4. Maruthi Ritz:
I felt this is the best car in the segment with respect to performance and VFM. It specification is the best in the segment. However high end model was pricey so i could not opt for it.
5. Fiat Punto:
External Design of the car is simply mind blowing and it looks huge. My requirements was for 1.2 litre engine and with good external design with equally good interiors. However interior of Punto was disappointing and 1.2 liter engine does not enough enough power.I found Punto with 1.4 liter engine has good performance as per reviews posted in many websites.
6. Ford Figo;
Its a big car with loads of space and it is perfect family car if you choose diesel variant. Reason for not opting is that of outer design which is taken directly from ford fusion. I want something smaller to go around the city and easier to park small car rather than big car.I have no information about performance of petrol but diesel is best VFM if you for figo deisel.
6 Hyundia i10 :
At the fag end of my search there were 2 cars in contention that is i 10 and Beat lt. i10 kappa was below 5 lakhs but lacked VFM accesories which is available in beat. I would have bought i10 if they had provide same accessories. I felt rear design of the car is dated and there are too many on road which makes it boring to look at.
7. Beat LT w/o options:
This model does not come with alloy wheels, ABS, Airbags and golden chevy logo on the steering, we cannot fix logo as accessory as per service head in Trident Chevrolet. I had to increase my budget to 5 lakhs for this buy.
Dealer experience:
I had been to just one dealer as other other dealers were far from home and office.
Trident Chevrolet :
Dealer is located just 1 km from my office so i had privilege of disturbing them whenever i had any clarification and Dealer was more than happy to answer my queries. Before I decided to visit showroom i had done some R & D regarding Beat so I don't have to stress the hapless sales person.
On the day I visited there where almost skeletal staff, i had to wait for 5 minutes for salesperson to arrive. At last Salesperson named Hema (formerly Trident Hyundai ) arrived at the scene. she introduced herself with manipuri accent, gave detailed information about the car and accessories list. However she couldn't answer few queries as she claimed she was newbie and was transfered from Trident Hyundia. She was hesitating to give full demo of car, for instance when i asked her to demo integrated audio system she was evasive, but when i stressed that i'm seriously considering a buy she relented to do it. As I was a newbie in car driving, i couldn't accept test drive offered by dealer.
Later i had made countless visits to showroom just to check different aspects of car and also introduced the car to my wife, she instantly fell in love with Chevy beat. We had decided to go for misty lake color as we had 2 cars with beige. Next visit was with my parents, they were really happy with car design, I even made them sit in the car just to check if 3 persons can sit comfortably in the rear and they felt comfortable. However dad was against Misty lake color as it was dull to look, but we felt misty lake color was next best color to beige. Dealer was way good to believe, they showed the workshop, stock yard and body shop.
Before I gave advance I decided to try check with Hyundai if they have anything better to provide in terms of accessories. I visited Trident Hyundia near cauvery theator, before i could see the car they wanted to discuss finance, insurance and other things. As I had learnt they give first year insurance free and loyalty bonus. In terms of accessories, there nothing different so decided to ditch i10. Even sales person was very passive as he meekly said Beat Lt is better choice as there are selling both i10 and beat.
After long discussion with wife with regards to finance, we decided to go for beat Lt without options as LT with options was 50 k more and waiting period was around 2 months. Misty lake was readily available and delivery promised immediately after loan approval. so we booked the car for Beat Lt w/o options with misty lake by paying 5000.
Even though dealer wanted to deliver fast, we couldn't take delivery as there was parking issue near my home. My dad was totally against Misty lake as it was very dull, so i had to change my car color to Linen beige at the time of down payment. Unfortunately linen beige was not in stock so dealer informed that delivery would be delayed and so delivery date was fixed for June 5th (Our Engagement anniversary) .
Week before delivery, car arrived in stock yard, it was getting fitted with auto cop key less entry accessory. We were also given chassi number and engine number to keep it as reference. We are also offered to check before delivery and did small test drive in stock yard.
Delivery was planned at 3 pm, we reached there at 2:30. We found that due to flyover construct just apposite to showroom lot was dust got accumulated and so asked for washing it again. Still on delivery it wasn't squicky clean. Just as we were leaving to take car home we were given temporary registration of the car and I went through the details to make sure there was no issues later. I found that vin number in car documents was different when compared to temporary rto form. I refused delivery till matter was sorted, issue got escalated to branch manager, who promptly opplogised for the issue and showed us documents with regards to manufacturing and other documents which shows correct vin number, it seems rto fumbled in registration. They also gifted chevy clock as it was our engagement anniversary. As i was still newbie, I took help of chevy person to take the car home and once home i washed the car to remove dust stains.
We got calls from customer support of Trident Chevrolet, regarding performance of car and showroom. we also received call from Chevrolet directly inquiring quality of service and i'm happy with the way purchase went by.
On our first month reassurance check up, car was cleaned well and i felt that service good as of now. Next service in dec 10.
Bank: HDFC
Insurance: ICICI lombard around 15 k
accessory: auto cop ---> 2,800/-
car cover: 950/-
with steering cover, mudflaps, internal black carpet and boot carpet free (i don't know exact name)
On road price: 4,92,000
