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Monday, February 28, 2011

Need inputs on a car purchase

After test-driving a couple of cars over the weekend and post my success with crowd-sourcing the name of my website in my previous blog-post, I thought its best to seek the opinion of my knowledgeable readers for inputs on the CAR purchase.

In Short: I am looking for a Sedan with a budget of 6-8L, ample leg-room (for obvious reasons), preferably diesel car (plan to go on lots of long-drives) with good mileage (14-15+ in City), Decent looks and power (CC, Power-To-Weight) and most importantly reliable after-sales&service / parts availability at low cost.

The options that I am currently looking at:
1) Hyundai i20 or i10 Sport (Leaning towards one of these for now)
2) Toyota Etios Petrol (Liked it overall, only downside is that it has a 3 month wait time)
3) Fiat Linea (Budget / Power / Resale concerns)
4) Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire (Downside is my bro already owns one :-))
5) Ford Figo / Fiesta (Downside - High Maintenance as seen from Dad's Ford Ikon Experience)
6) Maruti Suzuki SX4 Diesel (Might be slightly over this budget for fully-loaded model)
7) Mahindra Xylo (Only SUV in this range)

Please do input your new suggestions (if not in the above list) or your thoughts/experiences on any of the above. In return, I promise to blog my learnings once I do make the purchase. :-)

Post Updated with some of the suggestions that I did more research on & liked post the suggestion.
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7 comments:

  1. Did you check out ford fiesta? That's been there for quite sometime and whomever I've talked to have good things to say about it. Diesel variant will hit your upper budget.

    Well - i10/20 lacks the power. Good for city drive - but for long drives - not that powerful as some of the other hatchbacks that are coming up.

    And of course there's SX4 - will overshoot your upper budget by a lakh -but that too is good.

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  2. Give a thought for a SX4.. should meet all your criteria except the cost... :-)

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  3. Bargava - Ford is a negative in my mind for two reasons - one my dad already owns a Ford Ikon and more importantly I've seen him struggle with service and parts cost for over 5-6 years now with no signs of significant improvement.

    @Sal: SX4 seems like a theme across most comments.

    @Shubadip: Vento - Hmm ... let me look at it.

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  4. Car leasing provides the best deal possible in terms of car rental and car purchase. Car leasing offers advantages to both buyers and sellers. Monthly lease payments are usually lower than monthly loan payments because you are paying only for the vehicle's depreciation during the lease term, plus rent charges like interest, taxes, and fees. Monthly lease payments are usually lower than payments on a car loan.

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  5. I rarely leave a response, but i did a few searching and wound
    up here "Need inputs on a car purchase". And I do have a couple of questions for you if you usually do not mind.
    Could it be only me or does it seem like some of the responses come across
    like they are written by brain dead people? :-P And, if you are writing at other social sites, I'd like to keep up with anything fresh you have to post. Would you list of all of your communal pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?

    My webpage Social Bookmarking service

    ReplyDelete