Well well well, what more can i ask for? A HATRICK for today! i some
how managed to squeeze in a test drive of the aveo UVA 1.4 LS today at
Sundaram motors, Kasturba road. The friendly neighbour hood salesman
was ever ready to offer me a test drive. The test drive car had done
2000+ kms which means to say test drive cars are not sold to us
unknowing customers! hurray chevy, you scored on that one! i went to my
wife’s office to pick her up and on my way back since other work was
over, and i had time to kill, asked the guy whether i could come for a
test drive today itself instead of tomorrow and he told me to come
there immediately. what more could i ask for? took my wife and landed
at the chevy showroom to drool at the UVA.

when i write reviews, i want to make it as unrelated as possible to any
other car and i see each new car in its own natural perspective and
enjoy it before making comparisions. Enough of talk now, to the
features: The one i saw was a 1.2 LT and the one i drove a 1.2 LS, only
marginal features differences which i ll point out later on.

The car itself:

1. SPACIOUS!! really spacious. well its more or less like the getz or
palio in space, but you really feel different here! you feel at home.

2. integrated power window switches onto door panels, nice looking good job chevy

3. tilt steering – when people cant provide height adjustible seats,
atleast they must provide tilt steering which might compensate for that
for short people or tall people alike. and to my expectation i found
it, good addition chevy! my wife was also comfy sitting in the car.

4. loads of space for rear passengers. quite asthetic. in terms of
practical space usage, sorry chevy, you stand second w.r.t getz. no
proper cup holders, only one bottle holder near console box, and no
intuitive coin storage etc etc. i can excuse that though.

5. glove box is good too and dashboard is pretty usable here too. while
the LT version includes digital clock and other things the LS doesnt
but only has space for the same. cost cutting chevy, perhaps to sustain
the organization!!

6. digital ODO, chevy here ties with getz for first place. good. damn FIAT

7. i did not notice a tacho on the ls, maybe in the lt it was there (again forgetful)

8. remote boot release and fuel cap release – available, good again

9. boot, comparable to both fiat and getz, good job chevy.

10. rainforest colour – great, plus six other colours.

11. gearshift is smooth when seen in showroom.

12. i must say chevy has got one of the most beautiful and fresh
looking cars in the UVA – rear light assembly is simply too good and
the front is also acceptable!

now to the matter – test drive …..

the route: from kasturba road, onto vijaya mallya hospital road, then
right, around kanteerva, back to kasturba road ~ about 1km with varying
traffic, sometimes bumper to bumper, sometimes rip, some even sized
humps and a full u turn!

1. the first thing i noticed when i started the car is its silence. just like getz. full marks to chevy on this count

2. the headlights dont go on until the engine is started. its kind of
funny to think of as i may require them sometimes when the car maybe
off, a silly mitake maybe from chevy, excusable.

3. wipers and indicators swapped, i hated this initially, but got used to it in 2 mins.

4. the clutch is amazingly easy to operate and i found this to be the
biggest benefit of city driving. some cars that are in this segment of
easy clutc

hes – santro. getz, and uva until what i drove till now,
maybe ford ikon too. damn fiat, i hated that clutch and if i dump that
car, it will surely be becuase of the clutch and tilt steering non
availability.

5. the gear shift is definitely notchy, but nothing as bad as xeta,
looks like i ve got a TD vehicle where the gear shift has been worked
upon. i find the gear shifts in getz and uva easier to operate than
palio. though palio has got a disticnt feedback as to which gear you
slotted into.

6. the power windows did their job well. the a/c wasnt exactly chilling
like palio, but initially he kept it at full blast and then i reduced
it to level 1 since i was frozen. so good a/c overall. now when he kept
the a/c at highest, it was my turn to challenge the car to perform
under that condition and 3 huge adults in the car.

7. i was skeptic about the torque (though not about bhp) as it was
110Nm at 4400 rpm, almost 1k rpm more than palio and getz. i was
wondering that it wont pull with the a/c and 3 people, but how wrong I
was!! first gear gives little more freedom than the other two cars i
reviewed, after which i slotted into second. at this stage with full
blowing a/c and 3 people i hit the gas pedal real hard and it took a
few seconds to understand that input and translate it to surging
forward. i guess this was becuase of the a/c. then for the next
distance i put the a.c in level 1 and tried the same trick of 2nd gear,
this time it pulled mighty well (and the sound is like a super smooth
mixie grinding its contents – so sweet! its like a cat purring), 2nd
gear i went upto 60 with ease and then decided the car has given me the
confidence to go to third. so i went on further 3rd, 4th and finally a
notchy 5th. the fifth gear i feel is difficult to engage with the same
ease, and it might just be my misfortune that i drive a 4 gear maruti,
and i need to always remember that dude, there is another gear!!

8. when in fifth this time without a/c i pushed the car hard and its
response was encouraging. moved forward with a smooth glide. up ahead i
faced bumper to bumper stop-move-stop-move traffic. in this section i
first tried with a.c at level 1 and second gear, i had to revv the car
a bit for it to keep up. then i decided the first gear is the best and
i tried with first, it was good at first as expected. of course i am
the 2nd gear kind of guy if you know what i mean – like some people
drive their erstwhile bajaj chetak scooters directly into 2nd gear!!
the bumper to bumper driving one may need getting used to with UVA but
the car simply doesnt let you down. very good job chevy. now if you
would kindly reduce the price. damn and thou shalt enocourage half of
india to buy thy car!

9. last step, u-turn on kasturba-mg road junction back to showroom.
quite a wide road, and with 4.95m it was smooth and nice, personally i
felt the u-turn i took on uva is better than the one on getz for some
reason. the power steering was just superb! silky smooth.

10. and then the brakes, quite sensitive as the palio, but werent like getz.

and with this i handed back the keys to the guy and bade him a tired
goodbye. and with this review i need to do that to you all once again,
a tired goodbye!

so whether i will suggest this car to someone? : well heck definitely
yes!! forget the safety ratings for once and enjoy a well made car.
that ways all our cars are unsafe. all depends on how you drive. and in
the morning hour rush, definitely you cant get killed.

prices OTR:

base 4.58, LS 5.03, LT – 5.48, LT with option pack (sick option pack of
abs and leather gear knob! holy cow! whats wrong with chevy) – 5.83

for arizona amber, rain forest ( a beautiful color) and velocity

LS – 5.08, LT – 5.54, LT with option pack – 5.94 (6 lacs for a hatch?
s

koda, learn from these guys, you can also mint money …. grrr)

After having car dreams all night long yesterday after 3 test drives, i
wanted to go back to the tata showroom to show my wife the palio (since
it was cheaper than the rest I had test driven). I had bought my
earlier maruti 800 at bimal motors indiranagar. Just before I left i
called bimal on whether i can have a test drive of the swift diesel VDi
and they said i can. so i changed my mind and took my wife along. On
the way i stopped over to the getz showroom and she had a look at
santro and getz that i had test driven earlier yesterday. since the
executive was taking too much time, i told him i ll be back and i went
ahead to bimal.

Knowing the showroom well, the moment I went in, i was offered a test
drive and the keys to the VDi were in my hand. It was an ozone blue
colour car, pretty nice looking and a unique colour in the market as of
today. Put my wife in the back seat, executive in the left seat in
front, ane me on the driver seat! Jet Set Go!

Started car. No noise. Super silent. Cross checked twice, was sure that
the car was on.Had to do some twists and turns on reverse to take the
car out, but the super power steering was only more than eager to
respond to me. It was in this same forum i had once commented that the
power steering felt too puny for me. Somehow that feeling was not so
this time. The executive (a lady )
was feeling hot (a pun there) and she wanted to put on the a/c. so the
a/c was on level 2. now for the route. from Bimal, one long straight
road (same as the getz drive earlier) all the way on the flyover, down
the ramp, a super sprint on ring road, a u-turn, back on flyover down
again stop and go traffic and one final u-turn.

I must mention that maruti has done a wonderful job on the gear swift
(oops shift!). Its so effortless and slots in just perfectly (except
again for the fifth and reverse gear, wonder why i feel like this with
all other cars too!). Put it into 1st gear and the diesel engine had no
noise at all. it didnt allow me too much into first gear, guess the car
didnt like it, so i slotted into second and then came the torque. the
wonderful torque was very evident in the way the car managed stop and
go and its extremely easy to stop and go only on second gear due to
this. i revved hard and i could easily touch 60 in second gear. i
changed into third and then into fourth (again me an 800 owner, so i
had to remind myself – hey there is another gear!!) the flyover up ramp
was fast approaching and here we were, 3 people a/c on level 2 and
quite an empty road in front of me. so i revved hard and the car
marginally slugged forward. this is where i got an opinion, maruti, is
this all the show about? was carefully seeing the RPM meter this time,
in about 2 seconds i touched 1500rpm and then what happened was just
nirvana! the car flew like a bullet out of the traffic with everyone
left behind just staring blank. wonderful maruti, wonderful fiat
i already touched 80 and slotted into fifth this time. revved the gas
pedal harder, again reached 1500rpm in 2 seconds, and the car shot off
like a scalded cat. i cant believe all this happened so smoothly that
all i knew was a feeling i had as though i was on an airplane that was
on its take off speed. oh boy! its simply unbelieveable that a new age
16 valve 4 cylinder, DOHC 1.3 MJD was performing so brilliantly. after
the great high, i realised i had to handle this cannon gun more
carefully lest it fire up again and i slo

wed down a bit again onto the
ramp of the flyover after a superb u-turn. with its turning radius of
4.75, its able to be nifty to take u-turns like a merry go round for
children. when i came down the flyover at that speed, i heard a sudden
rattle of some body part – the car had done 2200km already and the
clutch was more free play – maruti, what been happening lately with
those rattles dear? looks like you havent corrected yourself.

i again encountered stop and go traffic and i tried driving this car
with 1st gear with a.c, 1st gear without a.c, 2nd gear with a.c and 2nd
gear without a.c. and though in second it hesitated a bit to move
forward, it was more than willing to do so in both gears irrespective
of the fact of the ac being on or off. a final u-turn brought me back
to bimal and the girl next to me seemed to be having goose pimples the
way i drove, with a shocked look on her face.

after the adrenalin rush, here are a few things about the car itself (this time in reverse order after first driving the car!)

– seats are comfy for four people, the fifth if bulky cant sit
properly behind, so its best to take this as a super comfy car for 4

– remote boot release and fuel cap release avaialble

– immobilizer also present in vDI

– a/c is great in both level 1 and 2, more higher not required it chills sufficiently

– side view mirror good and sturdy and can be mechanically adjusted from inside

- rear view mirror sucks big time and is too small and obstructs view
of the back side id people are in the car, i have a mirror attached to
the rear view mirror over and above it, for 375 rupees, which gives a
wide and good view of the behind.

– lots of space on dashboard and can be used practically.

– rear passenger comfort is good and my wife didnt feel thrown about even on potholed roads.

- showroom will change me to alloys (tubeless tyres on all models) at
16k for aura and will take my original rims for a marginal amount,
dunno how much

- boot space is as much as indica or santro, but less usable. suitcases
wont fit in properly maybe bags will. this is the only biggest
compromise i have to make vis-a-vis a thousand other benefits of this
car.

– digital odo, good maruti, you are up with the rest

– not much silver trims or wood trims, maruti has kept it black, maybe not that boring though

- with abs and ebd, this car is enough safety and is also like a tank
in terms of agility and handling, a tad bit lower than palio though!

- with a ground clearance of 170mm, i couldnt test if it was suffient
to soak up humps, but its atleast as good as my 800. so thats ok!

they are offering upto 1.65 for my old maruti 800 which is truly true
value. but with a damn 3 month wait period maruti will lead by monopoly
rather than by a good example! though the executive didnt know much on
new baleno, i believe it should certainly have a 1.9, 140 BHP MJD
engine from fiat and would be priced about 9 lacs, still a great value
and can be compared to corolla and the likes if quality fit and finish
are done well. trust maruti will be right onto that job. atleast they
are quite capable. honda city get ready to pack up if this happens.
your luxury excuse wont hold good for long!!

i might finally make the booking for an ozone blue swift VDi by
tomorrow if things go well. an amount of 50k and a wait of atleast 2
months. i m ready for that for this beautiful performance oriented car.
needless to say reliable service from maruti anytime anywhere. but
please mr.jagdish khattar, stop those rattles on the swift before you
lose the COTY 2008 with this car or the bigger new baleno.

OTR prices – 5.43 LDI, 5.76 VDI (no much discounts at this time)

I was always anxious to know like others whether the new
getz prime will hold onto the market and was very interesting in
getting a test drive in a proper location which had a mix of inclines
to test its power. my main concern was the pulling power of 67bhp and
how it compares to the palio with the getz having a 4 valve SOHC while
the palio had a 2 valve SOHC. So off i went since one person in trident
was more than willing to help me drive it since a month back. he told
me he would call me when the car was available. as coincidence would
have it when i returned from the palio TD i got a call saying the
hyundai TD is ready!

Now getting a juicy offer and considering the fact i could drive from
indiranagar to koramangala via the flyover and also test its higher
speeds, i immediately ran away to trident. after a brief look at the
getz prime it was now time to drive. but before that experience, a talk
on the features.

the model i saw was a 1.3 glx, and the model i drove was a 1.1 gvs. the OTR prices in bangalore are

1.1 GLE 4.85, 1.1 GVS 5.27, 1.3 GLS 5.56 and 1.3 GLX 6.02 (shucks
anymore and they are entering over and beyond logan high end diesel
territory!!)

some small things:

1. tilt steering available, not there in palio, common fiat!! wake up

2. comfortable seating position

3. aluminium brushed door handles and front panels, good

4. lots of space on dashboard for piling up lots of things!

5. the boot lock is integrated with the mechanical central lock itself. so if main lock is open, boot is open else no

6. boot can also be closed by key

7. 40-60 seat split, quite useful (common fiat, look at these guys and learn)

8. huge boot space which is very very practical.

9. speaker space on each door

10. defogger, rear wiper(not availble in rear on low end versions)

11. sexy gear shift, and smooth clutch (not hard like fiat)

12. dead pedal near clutch and spacing of pedals very optimal and practical for usage

13. no 12V socket like fiat, so no laptop usage! but cup holders are very practical in getz

14. odometer is digital, good job hyundai!! clock is black over green
bkgnd, and not green over black bkgnd like fiat, sheesh wish these fiat
guys had colour sense!

15. tyres are smaller in basic models of 1.1 and only bigger in 1.3 and no tubeless either. bad hyundai.

16. no ring protection for slotting into reverse like palio. so much for safety.

Now to the drive:

1. There is no way you are going to know if the car is off or on. NVH levels are the best, good job hyundai, wonderful!

2. 1st gear gets rich too early much like palio, and demands a shift

3. gear shift being good its almost effortless to move into any gear!

4. put the a/c on before the flyover and i was in fifth gear by the
time i reached the flyover ramp. the car moves steadily on 5th gear
onto the flyover and maintains steady, however press the pedal and
there is no surge in activity. its so boring. with 2 people and aircon
it struggles to go above the flyover. no one to overtake so cant judge
if power is enough. />

5. get down the ramp, still on fifth gear, torque is amazing at this
gear, switch off the a/c and rip upto middle of ring road, never
noticed what speed i was in, but it was simply effortless without a/c
on fifth gear to get to high speeds. and the steering is just perfect
with a 4.9m turning radius allowing you to complete u-turns! good
hyundai.

6. one U turn and was on second gear, didnt feel like driving in that
much, moved to third, here again no use, moved to fourth. fourth seemed
better, switched a/c on again power dropped, moved to fifth since i was
at some speed already. truck in front of me i approach a flyover ramp
again.

7. honk like mad, the truck moves out of way giving me just millimeters
of space and challenging me to either overtake or shut up. with fifth
gear i try overtaking with ac no use, slot into fourth try again, still
on parallel with truck, cant make it, slot into third and revv hard and
finally finish the manouevre. no sense of racing enthusiasm at all. my
maruti is better. i am able to slot down and confidently overtake even
with a/c on. sheesh hyundai you have disappointed me with power
delivery in the gears with the a/c. and this was exactly the concern
area mentioned by many bhpians earlier. quite true i guess. just for
power hyundai makes me spend upto 5.56 lacs! hyundai what are you
thinking?? is someone mad to take ur getz at that price vis-a-vis swift
diesel at 30k more?

8. the brakes arent so sensitive like palio (holy cow!) so i was more relaxed.

finally what?

– pricey, very pricey

– half the features what palio offers at much lower prices

– torque is good only in fifth and fourth gears, 1st and 2nd are disappointing, 3rd is well only required to overtake probably.

– great a/c

– good cabin and boot ergonomics and speaker placements

– needless to say costly hyundai service vis-a-vis tatas.

maybe hyundai might manage to sell it in india, but i think abroad,
people will really be disappointed with the performance. i am sure the
crdi diesel will be 7 lacs where no middle class guy can dream of it
even. good bye hyundai.

Its my pleasure to post here my experience with the test drive of the
new palio stile. Without bragging much about anything, let me start off
to the point. I has spoken to one Mr.Subbiah the manager of Prerana
motors, next to urvashi theatre (lalbagh road) expressing interest in
the test drive. since the car was still unavailable in the showroom
around April 1st, he said he will contact me once its there. Maybe due
to his busy schedules, he never did that. We all are busy, and we can’t
expect others to be proactive when we ourselves are not! So I decided
to call him up again, and this time he remembered me, and asked me to
come on Good Friday morning for the test drive since the car was now
available in the showroom.

And what a good friday it was !! There was no traffic whatsoever in the
morning, and I promptly presented myself in their showroom spot on at
10am. They were just opened for the day and without any surprise i
found the Palio Stile parked there. The lady who received me was very
courteous and to the point, and she said she “doesnt know” for whatever
she “didnt know” Me already having owned a palio, starting checking out
the car by myself. The driveable car was another piece which was
getting ready, so i indulged in the one in the showroom.

Here a few salient points:

1. The double barrel headlamps are a thing of beauty and is master
crafted to a perfect shine! it simply blows you away when you stand and
observe it from the distance.

2. The beige treatment within the car is sort of dirty, but you get used to it after a while.

3. The power window switches are now part of the door lock mould, instead of the previous door handle mould (if i am not wrong)

4. The rear indicators are vertical (the ones in the earlier photos
from shineshine are not the indicators, its the reverse lights) and are
clear lens. Needless to say, the remote fuel cap release and boot
release are there as well.

5. The seating position is not the greatest (i found the indigo to be
better in terms of back support and sitting straight, whereas the palio
is more of a slide-back-relax-and-drive kind of seat), but its the same
since the older model. overall the changes mentioned above makes the
car looks refreshing.

6. while sitting in the rear seat, i shook myself a lot, and found that
the car too shakes on this impact. well this only means that you can
notice the weight shed from the times of the old palio. nothing to be
anxious about since the reassuring door thud still is there! (if you
know what i mean)

After drooling over the car much, the car was ready for the test drive,
and no fuss, the key was given to my by one mr.thimmiah and he said
lets go!!one point though is that i feel the cars going to be delivered
to someone are the ones being offered for test drive, which i feel is
cheating on some unsuspecting person! the one i drove already had 57kms
clocked on it. i can understand their yard is in peenya, which is far
far away, but come on for 57 kms i wouldve crossed hosur even!!being
familiar with the car, i started it and there is only a faint feeling
that the car is on. quite impressive. i had a drive from lalbagh road
onto krumbeigal road upto rv road circle, u turn, and then to jc road
and via poornima theatre road back to lalbagh road (about 1-2 km with
all kinds of traffic and empty stretches today being good friday) my
observations:

1. the clutch is a hydraulic clutch, you have to press it fully with
your might to engage the gear (this is specially so for 2nd gear which
does not slot in properly if on half clutch)

2. on the first gear you cant even go a few metres, you will have to
change. this car has the ability to give a feedback on when it requir

es
a gear change (much like the santros i have driven), which is good.
onto second gear and I dreaded the sluggishness that was there in the
earlier palio nv’s will repeat. I cautiously pressed the accelerator,
intially without a/c with two people in the car, i was NOT confident
the car is going to pull, just marginally 2 seconds later, the car much
to my expectation, just started pulling magically! definitely the
sluggishness of the previous version is much lesser now. as reported
earlier, trying to take the car upto 100 on second gear is quite
foolish with such a beauty, and i went into third gear quite easily
much before a 100!! (remember i had traffic)

so the moral – you expect the car not to pull, but the car shows who it is! so have confidence and step on the gas!

3. i happened to stop once due to early clutch release, and had a bus
blaring its horn behind me. thanks to avoidance of multi cranking, i
had to fully switch engine off and recrank again (this is a waste of
time in busy traffic, but its best for the engine itself)

4. onto third gear and the car is just a beauty to drive! it just sails
on third gear effortless pulling all it can! oh boy i really thought i
was on cloud nine! i pressed the gas pedal much more confidently this
time, and the car surged forward just as i wanted! fourth gear was
pretty much the same experience. one thing to mention is that i fully
well tested the torque in third and its just great!! the guy even told
me sometimes when we come to almost dead stop in second gear, i can
confidently move on in the same gear with this car! (i atleast
appreciate his liking to a palio considering he was mr.ratan TATAs boy
- and his honesty in his liking!)

5. Finally I was in fifth gear, the car is capable of pulling well in
fifth gear, though the feedback received on gas pedal press isnt
exactly matching the expectation of this capability. perhaps then this
is the effect of 57bhp and only if i crossed 100+ would I have known if
it was exactly like my old horse!

6. the brakes – this is a department i was not exactly comfortable
with, and just like the older model, the brakes here too was very very
rigid! you know this is exactly also why the palio stops where you want
it to stop and makes other cars behind it paranoid and bang into it anyways, i d rather have tight braking than a loose one. after all i want the car to stop where i want it to!

7. a welcome addition is the dead pedal which i dont think was there in
the earlier one (maybe i m getting too forgetful of the old horse now!)
though in the city i dont think it will solve any useful purpose!!

8. the a/c is mind blowing as before, and one flick of the switch and
in seconds you already feel the chill! good job fiat! i love you for
making me comfortable in this scorching summer! (a level 1 of the a/c
is more than enough if you are only one or two people in the car. and
hey guys, always leave to office early, much early in the morning, not
only are you kept cool by nature, you also save on fuel by not using
a/c!!)

9. the storage space on palio isnt exactly impressive.for the driver to
reach the shelf on the left seems too far off. and absolutely nothing
can be kept on the dashboard (personally i like this since otherwise,
we indians will think its an almirah and start stacking so many things!
a dashboard is a dashboard, use it like one!)

10. fiat provides wiring for either 4 or 6 speakers, but not the stereo
or the speakers itself. personally again, thats the best, i mean why
must i pay and accept whatever given by the company! fiat does what its
best known for, the car! i ve also heard before that its difficult to
fit certain stereos on palio, dont know whether thats true!

11. the boot is quite good, but no 40-60 seat split only full. some
cars i notice have vertical storage like swift or indica, while others
horizontal with getz being the best and then palio!12. the wheels
are
the same radii but tubeless this time, but somehow the gaps between the
wheel arches and tyre remind me of the earlier indicas. it removes a
certain composed figure of the car that was there in the old horse.

i expect this car to be frugal with fuel and atleast 14 without a/c is
assured. and for the price and features as earlier posted in this
forum, nothing matches this car. so then what about colours, i liked
the red and green the most, since i already own a blue maruti 800, the
other good colours would be black and blue, though white and silver are
known ones to be sedate looking! but i d anyday vouch for the fact that
NO ONE will have the heart to call a white palio a taxi!!

Please note that the colours mentioned in the brochures exactly match
that of the actual car which is good.fiat have worked on all these
changes themselves and not with tats support. tata only do sales!
prerana has a service center next to big bazar on old madras road.
their showroom team is 100 times better than the disorganized manipal
motors. there is also a prerana showroom on sarjapur road next to hsr
layout entrance (27th main)

finally as i exit the car, i listen to the reassuring thud one last
time before heading off to my maruti 800 again. what a dramatic change
once i enter my maruti. its unbelieveable that i ve been driving this
car for 2 yrs now! but a few minutes with it and i am back to normal.