Tata Nexon – the indica that shoud’ve been

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It is inspiring to believe a company like Tata have undergone a thorough transformation whose outcome is visible in a product such as the Nexon

Introduction

I finally had a chance to test drive the Tata Nexon top end diesel AMT mini SUV. Yes, the same one that has been making waves before and after its launch. If you know me well, I am a guy who would base reviews on everyday usability of the products that I test, and here it is no exception.
It is really inspiring to see how far Tata Motors have come in terms of being able to design a radically different type of product in their portfolio. Ever since sometime now they have set sights on good designs all the way from the Tiago to the Tigor and to the Hexa. The Nexon is the cream on the cake if I were to genuinely say so. So you do want to hear about what the car has to offer and I am going to take you right into that part of the review.
There have been many reviews written on this car and even videographed for the viewers by now. Yet they all lack in some part of the articulation in its truest sense.

Design elements

More than speaking about the exact nature of the design elements of the car, what I would like to point out here is more that the entire design is a refreshing change in the history of Tata cars. Every element of the design is chosen to make the car look unique within the portfolio. To say more about this I have to start somewhere among all the great bits. What made me fall in love with the car is its day time running lamps. For a car worth a little over 10L price bracket, the DRLs were in the league of cars more than double that price. For me I do not appreciate DRLs by merely looking at them standing in front of the car. What would more matter to me is if the car announces its presence in the rear view mirror of the car I am driving. In that sense, the Nexon makes all the right visual cues in a bold and deterministic manner.

Exterior

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The grille in the front is crafted very well and is very different from the typical tata cars we are used to. All the way from the front, this vehicle is SUV-ish be in looks or the way the pieces are put together. That said, the bumper, the bonnet, wheel arches – everything looks macho. Being in Bengaluru, one would know that for the rainy season where there is no differentiation between what is a road and what isn’t the need of the hour would be a vehicle with sufficient ground clearance to wade clear of that water and tyres to support that kind of driving.
The 16″ alloys make and imposing statement about the car and are available in two varieties the meek 195/60 and the more meatier 215/60 which blows competition out of the water. The tyres are safe and secure and would eat up anything thrown at it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But how do we know unless we put that to test, right ? So let us come back to more of those later. The sloping roofline to the back, the stright lines on the doors just make the car look gorgeous. The projector headlamps add to the glory during the night. The unladen ground clearance of 209mm is more than enough to not kiss every part of the road a sedan would otherwise. The laden clearance would obviously be lower, and the suspension should appropriately take care of that even if the car is laden with adults and luggages to the max capacity in real life.
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The ground clearance clearly puts it into SUV category and makes the car look all the more imposing. The plastic handles blend well with the overall scheme and does not make the car look out of place. Single tone and dual tone colours add more options and the colour choices themselves are smashing to say the least. I test drove the etna orange, but personal favourites on the roads are generally the moroccan blue, vermont red and even calgary white. I have never seen a silver so far, but sure have seen the glasgow grey which is also a looker. The red is my favourite though.

Interior

Step into the car and you would expect typical tata fare of the same old boring dashboard with addition of clock and the some dials. But let me tell you again just in case you did not read earlier – Tata has paid a lot of attention and has completely revamped the interior to an extent that you would not believe what you are seeing. The three tone interiors are soothing and are not contrasty like the Kraz edition. The AC vents are normal ones you see on any other car, and there is a harman floating console in the middle. The steering has been carried over from Tiago and Tigor, but for those who only know the indica, this steering is miles apart from the old Indica’s and by a very large margin. I will talk about this more when we cover the drive.
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The seats were not leather, but were cushy by tata standards, and I did feel that the thigh support could have been slightly better. It is not unmanageable but I do feel that over longer distances there can be some discomfort for those with legs longer than rest of their body – like me (the unfortunate bunch). There is a dial with different modes (eco, city and sport) which you can change on the fly and it mainly affects the gear change timings which are crucial for the experience of the said modes. Obviously the eco mode is tuned for mileage and the sport mode for driveability and power.
For safety you do get two airbags, ABS and EBD and a super rigid body structure. Just to drive home the point I have heard of Nexon’s having overturned on accidents on highways and everyone just walked out the door like nothing happened. You can be rest assured that Tata is among some of the companies whose main focus is on safety and reliability of the tensile structure of the body if not necessarily the parts.
The car has a generous amount of bottle and knickknack holders on doors and on the center of the front seats. I like the fact they have sliding doors to open up to the concealed storage areas. It is almost Civic-ish if I should point out. And that’s a good thing. It is like getting 20L premiumness in 10L. The central floating console is from Harman and there are 8 speakers, with Android auto and Apple car play – thereby finishing the exact need for an average user who wants music options. For more seasoned audiophiles an ICE would add more options to the experience.
Some nitty gritties – the door mats were looking a bit flimsy and I am a big fan of 3D or 4D door mats which keep all the dirt within and can be easily cleaned and disposed of. But maybe its just my nitpicking for some thing which is not such a big concern on the Nexon. I did find the rear view mirror a tad bit too small and the rear visibility is actually an issue considering the sloping roofline. It is slightly more claustrophobic at the back as well. The space in the front is good with height adjust and recline options for seats. The rear seat can fit 3 kids and one adult or 3 adults rather comfortably – and I mean realistically so. It is not an Innova, but it is not an Alto either.
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The boot is large and very reasonable for any weekend drive or airport luggage even, and it should not present any problem as far as Nexon is concerned. It is surely not a Duster in terms of boot space, but its not bad either! There is also push button start which is a welcome move.

Engines

Enough about the interiors, can we move to the engine now? The car comes with turbo charged petrols and diesels, one with 1.2, 3 cyl, turbocharged petrol with 110 bhp power and 170Nm torque – and the other 1.5 4 cyl, turbocharged diesel with 110 bhp power and an insane 260Nm torque at 1500 rpm. What this means in simple english is brutal power, extreme driveability due to torque levels whether you are talking about petrol or diesel variants.

Gearbox

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Since I took a drive of the AMT, there are a few things to talk about this version. I was particularly interested to understand how Tata has worked on the AMT gear box, the AMT gear lever and the likes of design elements. The gear level was small and looked awesome. It surely looks and feels like a 20L car here as well. The slotting is perfect and without a fuss.
If I had to nitpick about this a bit I was NOT a big fan of pushing up for manual gear up (in manual mode). I am so used to pulling it down for gear up in my celerio and this kind of feels counter intuitive for me and would also be similarly annoying for many other people. The thing is this for a pull down you activate only your hand, for push up you have to lift your arm from the arm rest. Again not a big grouse. Just a small one 🙂
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Driving characterisitics

I would like to jot a disclaimer here that I did not try eco mode since I did not have the time or opportunity on the road to check it, but my guess is that since it is going to be tuned for mileage, the power will be reduced and upshifts would be common. Having put that out of the way let us focus on the remaining two modes, the City mode and Sport mode.
When you hear about these modes, the first thing that comes to you mind is that Sport would obviously be more zippy and more enthusiastic to use and the city mode would not be. Well that is the case almost but we need to consider a lot of other parameters such as the traffic on that road, the speed with which you are driving, the throttle inputs, how many potholes on the road, whether it is a linear road or not, and so on. Every person’s test drive experience will be different so I am trying to give you a fair picture of how the car behaves on a general test drive.

City mode

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First off city mode – there is no lag on acceleration from first gear. The gear shifts after sufficient amount of acceleration happens about where you expect it. No much head nod for the passengers if you are reasonably gentle with the throttle. Breeze to drive it and wade through the traffic, no major issues and the car stays put exactly the way you expect it to. The light steering is a boon in city traffic and is easy to maneuver the vehicle. I did find one problem though – the steering is slightly tilted to one side at its normal position and it feels a bit odd. But that maybe just a one off case with this test drive vehicle and may not manifest on other cars. Time will tell.
The car does not downshift as well too soon and holds up being a diesel with enormous amount of torque (260Nm). This is sweet and even if it was a manual it would have felt very good needless to say. The 110bhp of power coupled with 260Nm of torque at as low as 1500 rpm has put the Nexon in a really sweet spot as far as driveability goes. Default rpm for idling is between 700-900 and just putting your foot on the pedal makes this figure jump to almost 1200 rpm which is just pretty shy of the 1500 rpm necessary for the torque to show.

Sport mode

As usual enthusiasts who want sport mode for the adrenalin rush would think this mode will really make you feel like god. On the contrary it isn’t so. All it does is hold a gear for as long as you really push it hard and the engine sometimes sounds harsh until it goes to the next gear. Since this is the first iteration of the Nexon, future tuning could make this mode more enjoyable in the longer run. That said, there is enough grunt in any gear for the car to sail through in sport mode. After using the sport mode and not finding an opportunity inside the crowded road to revv up substantially I had to switch back to city mode which left me at ease. City mode I would say is the default sport mode within the city. The sport mode thus may make sense on the highway to hold to fourth and fifth gears at low and high speeds completing the overall drivability quotient to a decent level.
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Tyres

A word about the tyres. For me tyres make a huge difference in the way a car handles almost as much as the chassis/frame. As I said before, the Nexon top end has 215/60 tyres which are really enough to handle Bangalore’s potholed road surfaces with utmost ease. Rains, water, mud, potholes, bumps – you throw anything at these tyres and they eat it with aplomb. You are safe rest assured with this kind of tyre profile. The occupants had very less notion of how many potholes I was passing over on an internal locality road.

Suspension

Just like the chassis, and tyres one another important aspect about any car’s drivability is the suspension setup. For a car like Nexon I did expect something like duster’s suspension, but unfortunately its not the case. Do not get me wrong, it is not bad, but its not the best either. It sure is not mediocre and does well in isolating road undulations to a large level and like I said before the occupants barely will feel anything at all. It is only if you push the car too much on undulated surfaces some bounce is felt.
The suspension is not a hit or miss, but Tata can work on this to make it more sturdier nevertheless. As such the car handles well on broken roads which is the worst nightmare for any passenger.

Variants

Click the brochure to know more about the variants of nexon and what you will get or not get in each version.
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Niggles

Every car has niggles and they just cannot get away with them due to persisting quality issues. The Nexon being the first of its kind is surely a batch meant for testing on guinea pigs and only future versions will bring about quality on the faulty parts.
A few things I noticed which fall into minor niggles category

Doors bit flimsy – European level thud not present
Rear visibility is poor but that is by design – there is nothing much that can be done about this
AMT could have had lever down for gear up – though counter intuitive for some people
Door mats could be of 3D or 4D variety

Conclusion

The pricing of the nexon in Bangalore is pretty competitive to say the Ford Ecosport or the Honda WRV. You can check the pricing of each version below
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The Tata Nexon is a genuine attempt by Tata Motors to bring a car that looks very upmarket to its customers at a value for money price range with substantial exterior and interior design elements and surprisingly low amount of visible niggles. This would mean that the engineering and design of the vehicle was well thought over and brilliantly executed. Pitting it right where the Brezza, Ford and Honda WRV is the Nexon sure has the necessary character and demeanor to march past its rivals with a class leading engine, good ground clearance and visibility, excellent space and a punchy drive. If you are looking for genuine value for money – this is the car to go for while at the same time keeping in mind that there is not much parts reliability information available yet. The safety of this car is well designed and is surely going to keep occupants protected in all situations on the road.
Good luck Tata Motors to set sales charts on fire and the numbers cannot be wrong!

Written with StackEdit.

The love and hate towards Polo GT TSI

(Image source: VW India)

Firstly its a shame that I took a test drive of the Polo GT TSI this late – nearly five years after its launch in india. Since then its price is steadily increasing north. Nevertheless finally I managed to get my hands on this hot hatch and I was rather inquisitive to see what exactly the heat is all about 🙂

Specificiations of Polo GT TSI

First things first some specs out of my way

1.2 litre petrol engine, 4 cylinders
105 bhp power at 5000 rpm
175 Nm torque at 1500-4100
< 5m turning radius
16 inch alloy wheels – so increased ground clearance
45 litre fuel tank

Features of Polo GT TSI that matter

When you buy a hatchback buyers are left high and dry with so many omissions that companies undertake just to cut costs. Take the example of cars like Celerio, or Alto, etc which give just one airbag, or no ABS or only ABS and no airbags, no wipers, no defoggers – the list gets endless. Some argue that it is done to price the car in one particular price bracket. But these are not luxuries anymore. They are darn necessities of life. Why should I feel that only me as the driver needs an airbag? Why not my co passenger? As a matter of fact why not 8 airbags, why only two ? In 2017 we must look at a proper and safe car even if it costs much.

Some of the features Polo GT offers is very admirable compared to comptetion. Some of them I personally appreciated were these:

ESP
Hill hold control for DSG petrol
Dual airbags and ABS
Cruise control (on a hatchback !)
Automatic climate control
16 inch alloy wheels – takes care of the ground clearance aspect for good

I fail to understand whether they offer the following – My feeling is they do not which is a bit of shame

Anti pinch one touch windows for all sides
Auto dimming rear view mirrors
Rain sensing wipers and follow me home headlamps
Navigation / Android auto and Apple car play

Drive experience

Coming to the drive itself, I took only a brief drive which had the following along the route

Traffic – stop and go
Broken roads
Bad road humps
Smooth stretches to accelerate quickly
Slopes

The car is seemingly quiet upon start and does not let you know what is waiting to do when you press the pedal. Once you want to move you have three ways to use the car – D mode (completely auto) and Manual mode with tiptronic gear shifts and sport mode.

D-Mode

The D-mode is perhaps the best mode to drive this car in – it has precise understanding of the gear you are likely to be in and the dual clutch is just waiting to put the car quickly in to different gears just the way you expect the car to move about. If you are stressed out this is the mode to use and the car is always willing to work just the way you want it to and slices through traffic like butter. The chilling airconditioner also makes you very comfortable and long stretches of traffic jam would not be a bother anymore with the Polo GT.

Manual mode

The manual mode expects you to use the tiptronic transmission and for some reason VW have defined it in an anti progressive way – meaning we always expect + to be down and – to be up. In the GT its the other way round. for going higher you need to move the shift forward and for reducing gear move it backward. This is seriously counter intuitive and kills the joy of manual mode. If you want to know what I mean, drive the celerio AMT.

Sports mode

The sports mode is supposed to let you be on the same gear for a while longer to enhance pickup before gear change but it acts a bit sticky and just when you think it should be changing gear even on surges of acceleration it takes just that 1-2 seconds more which is disappointing. Again do not get me wrong here – its not unbearable – just could have been a bit more perfect. For the gears itself it does hold up pretty well and does not make you feel awkward. However it is still the D-mode i would prefer if you buy this car and it will never leave you feeling bad.

Ground clearance

All the reviews I see never really bother to cover this aspect properly. Somehow being in Bangalore for me this is one of the criteria to choose a car given the pathetic condition of our roads. Thankfully with VW deciding to give 16” wheels, the car did not even touch any of the most horribly designed road humps throughout the drive. I drove on them completely impressed with the way this car handles undulations on the road.

Body roll and suspension

The suspension is not exactly soft and more on the firmer side and hence you can expect slight body roll if you turn around corners sharply or go over real bad patches too fast. Again th car handles these bad patches well just that passengers inside may get pretty jostled at times.

Chassis and safety

This car comes with all the safety aspects you can think of – Dual airbags, ABS, ESP, Hill hold, etc. Most of all this is still the car with the reassuring european build even after a good 15 years since these cars started making in into the markets. Close the door and you get that reassuring thud which makes you feel safe at all times. God forbid you are involved in an accident with the Polo, you are bound to walk out alive for sure. Rest assured you are in one of the most safest car around.

Rear space

This sucks. No … Really. I mean it. This car should have been a 3-door car. Not a 5-door. I don’t know what VW were thinking when they designed this car for 5 people. Not even 4 people can sit properly if the front passengers are nearing 6 foot heights. The rest of them can forget enjoying sitting inside. The 2018 version of VW is much more roomy for this purpose. And its definitely a more spacious car. But you know how car manufacturers operate in India. They milk the consumers first for the old crappy products on sale currently and then bring in something new and make up a story that its so much more better than the older one and try to milk the buyers even more.

VW please do not fool people that this hatchback is the best for space and so on. No one will be able to believe it. Either bring the 2018 version out soon here for same price point or just dont mention space as a luxury element while advertising.

Fuel efficiency figures expected

I don’t go by ARAI figures or other such claims of mileage. Nowadays thankfully you dont need to go by the salesman’s word for mileage. There are systems that let you know the real time effeciency that the car is returning over a trip distance of a said number of kilometers. I did check the real world figures and it showed me 6.8kmpl for the Polo GT TSI. Agreed its a test drive car and most people always drive within 1st or 2nd gear. Its more of a performance automatic rather than something tuned for mileage. But even by extrapolated standards, I do not see this car giving anything beyond 10kmpl in city traffic.

If any of you are getting anything more than this, do let me know in the comments section and I will be glad to know how. There are cars that return 13-16/17 kmpl in hatchback category for petrol itself. So arguably the mileage figures of Polo does look a bit disturbing. Real world figures can touch a tad bit around 10 or slightly more. Do not expect anything more than this for an automatic vehicle.

Please do you research before blowing your money on a machine that burns your bank account at the petrol pumps often.

Conclusion

If you are looking at a powerful hatchback with an automatic transmission that steals the show the Polo GT TSI is for you. Safety and style are unquestionable and you get your money’s worth with this car. Rear space is a big disappointment and VW could have done well to utilize rear boot space for better rear space instead. However they chose not to do that due to not wanting to alter dynamics of driving.

The drive is powerful the car is nimble and makes you happy in stop and go traffic and your legs will thank you for the rest they get with the DSG gear shift. It is one of the most powerful cars in the category and it is there in the market for a reason. Driving enthusiasts. There is a waiting period of 8 weeks on the car and no discounts whatsover. That speaks a lot of where VW wanted to be with this car and they have been there since a long time now.

So if you do decide to invest on this car for the above reasons of power, ease of use – you will not be making a mistake.

Finally, the Duster AMT (Easy-R) test drive !

After a lot of lethargy a few failed visits and loads of procrastination, I finally made up my mind to get to Trident Renault at Hosur Road, near Silk Board for the test drive of the Duster AMT RXZ 110bhp version (4×2).

(The AMT Easy-R gearbox on Duster, courtesy Renault)

I did the good thing of calling the showroom, ensuring the car was available over this weekend and based on the promises went there. After checking out the RXS version of the duster for a while, I finally managed to get the Duster AMT for the test drive as promised. Without much fuss I got into the vehicle which was purring around with the engine running. As I do for all test drives irrespective of how experienced I am, I swithced the stereo off (though the sales guys keep shouting hoarse about how good the sound system is). Kept the AC to my liking not blowing too much on my face. I have this habit of diverting AC vents away from me so that I feel cool in the entire cabin not necessarily on my face.

Before I continue further, a few negatives.
<start cribbing>
> I did not much appreciate the cruise control buttons on steering and audio and phone buttons somewhere behind the steering. BAD
> The window buttons are all below hand brake or nearby. BAD
> The dashboard is so good in sports version but in the highest variant it looks crap. BAD
> The music and nav system could have been much better (like the apple car play stereo in s-Cross or Baleno)
> The lower variants have only one airbag for 13 lacs on the road. VERY BAD
<End of cribbing>

Steering

The first thing I found so good about this car is its steering. Without rake adjustment I was wondering if I’d be able to find a good seating position at all, but that was not an issue also especially considering this was an automatic. This is the first AMT for those who do not know mated to hill hold, and a six speed, with EBD, ABS in its category.

Boot

Everyone knows the amount of boot space in the duster. And enough said. Nothing even comes close to this in its category. For a five seater proper suv that is.

Road presence

You see a duster, you don’t mess with it. Period.

Suspension

I was really pleased to see the way the car handled the road. Ahem the SUV 🙂
The suspension just soaks up the bumps, and the passengers hardly feel that. Amazing. Just Amazing. And due to its ground clearance of 210mm (higher than how much we can screw up our roads into potholes), you can be rest assured the car is not going to scrape anywhere. And with nearly 35 degree rear angle and 30 degrees front angle, nothing is difficult with this car. The steering only adds to the joy. Its so easy to handle the vehicle and the size is never felt with such a smooth steering.

Space

This car has loads of space for 5 passengers and all their family items in the boot. Its a proper five seater SUV. And the three people at the back can sit very comfortably without any issue. The middle passenger having a fixed headrest is a nice touch.

Interiors

Frankly I did not like Duster’s interiors so much. It all looks like a lot of after thought rather than any planned outcome. The only exception was the sports version which had orange coloured strips and AC Vent borders which lent an exceptional look along with the seat stitching. I am really not sure why Renault is not including this along with all other versions. This is exactly what is needed to make it look much better on the inside.

The ride & AMT Gearbox

Coming to the AMT gearbox which is why I took this test drive in the first place there are a few things that I normally check with these gear boxes. So let’s go one by one
The upshift in drive mode
Put it to drive mode, and the car starts moving forward. You need to keep in mind that this will happen so that it does not take you by surprise at any time. The car drives smoothly for a while in first gear. Upon revving further rather linearly, the car quickly switches to second gear and then third. Through 1-2-3, there is no noticeable lag whatsoever. If the same thing was done with the accelerator floored, then the car holds on to 1 for a while more before switching to 2-3. If I were to put it more clearly for you, it gets you to the point of irritation and getting puzzled why its not shifting but before you can blink your eye, its shifted. This behaviour is only if you really press the pedal quite hard. If you drive normally even a bit spiritedly its no issue at all frankly.

Downshift upon braking
The downshift is in line with what you would expect and it comes down to 2nd gear quite soon upon slowing down. However just as you would expect, it holds on to the second gear for as long as it can before going to 1, something that we all do in manual. So brownie points there for Renault.
Manual mode upshifts
Switch the car to M mode, and you need to pull down for + and push up for -.
You need to switch to second gear as soon as you can for it to settle down, else the engine seems worked up on first gear if you are there in first for a while more. And it does not move either. So second gear onwards its ok to upshift as and where you would like to go.

Manual mode downshifts for overtake manouvres
As you would like to do sometimes, you can ask the car to go down a gear to quickly overtake another vehicle while on manual mode. I got limited opportunity to test this, but I would like to say that like other automatics, this maybe a hassle and not recommended. The car can get confused on how to behave suddenly in the lower gear and could give you loads of acceleration without much physical movement. Typical of all AMTs so far.

Sports mode
There is no sports mode in this car. But in any gear, the acceleration and power was always felt as per need. With 110 hp on tap, you are not going to feel this car is a laggard ever. So no issues there.

Conclusions and comparisons
At this stage I can compare this AMT with Celerio and Scorpio Automatic and I can say Renault really have implemented the AMT well. Almost comparable to Celerio and slightly mroe better itself. Of these three the Scorpio automatic is the worst as it has no clue which gear it is shifting to in any speed. One pedal less, same power as manual 110hp. No dearth of push in city traffic. Car like to drive. One leg resting. You cannot ask for more here.
I really wish Renault comes up with AMT in sports version, and RXL version and includes that freaking second airbag in both these models. Removal of an airbag is not a way to sell between versions and this is really not good. This is where I really like the XUV automatic which is now even available on W6 Trim.

Braking

Being an owner of a sunny, I have always felt the braking in sunny was not upto the mark. It leaves you wondering if the car will stop and if yes will the ABS work as expected. Thankfully in duster that’s not the case, the brakes are present and they work well as expected with lots of feedback.

Mileage

If this were a CVT it should easily return as much or more than manual. However this is AMT, so the mileage should be nearby manual figures at least. The test drive vehicle was showing an average of 9.5kmpl and even if you excuse the fact that no one would have ever reached 4th gear during the test drive, and bump these figures up a bit, expectation is that it would give around 12kmpl, nothing more. Absolutely nothing more. In fact I’d be surprised if it even returns so much to be honest.

Price

In Bangalore its starts from 11.53 lakhs on the road upto 17.29 lakhs on the road for the highest end version (AWD). Frankly I feel its overpriced for what it has to offer. But if you have the money, then this is the perfect car-like SUV. Period. No gimmicks here. For me for the AMT version which comes only in 110 hp avatar, its 16.4 lakhs on the road which is too much for a 1.5 litre engine today.

Gimmickery / Gadgetry / Features

> Cruise control with controls on steering, you can switch on cruise control and long press steering to set it to cruise. you can press + to increase cruise to certain level and – to decrease cruise. You can stop the cruise with a button, or restart to previous level in case of braking. All these four buttons are on steering.
> Power window and other such buttons are below handbrake, bad placement
> Audio and phone buttons are on a stalk fixed to steering column, bad design
> No start/stop keyless button
> Navigation system looks too basic in terms of UI design for me (being a UI centric guy)

Final words

The purpose of the test drive was to evaluate duster w.r.t to its AMT gearbox. For this the car does pretty well and will de-stress you out of Bangalore traffic on daily errands. It also should be a capable highway cruiser no doubt even with AMT. The tricky part was always about how car manufacturers implement the AMT system, and Renault looks to have mastered this in a neat way.

The AMT comes at a price which is steep and at this cost, there are lots of other contenders offering much more at the price point nearby to Duster (Creta, XUV, Scorpio, Ecosport, BRV, TUV, etc). The suspension and braking are a class apart and for Bangalore’s horrible roads, the Duster soothes like a balm for headache.

If you have the money to blow, you can easily plonk that cash into the AMT and you will not be too disppointed the way it will handle. For my own case I need to now arrange my funds as I have one contender who seems like a winner on most fronts.

A day out with the Honda BRV

The Honda BRV reviews are all over the place by now. Many channels like the CarDekho, AutoPortal, CarWale, AutoCar also went to Japan to check out the BRV first hand when it was launched. As a potential buyer more than a reviewer I had to wait my turn until the car reached the showrooms. And it did sooner than later. Took my kid along after having a chat whether the BRV was indeed available for a test drive. It was only the manual petrol though which I had to make do with, but atleast something was available.

Sure enough as I entered the showroom, the BRV was parked under decorative arches since it was the newest entrant into the Honda family in India. After having bitter memories about the Mobilio last time where I even said why I may not end up buying it, I did not have much of expectation on the BRV. After having seen many reviews which went on screaming the fact that it resembled the mobilio my spirits were further dampened. When you go with zero expectation nothing can potentially disappoint you. In fact its more likely the other way around where something can actually impress you.

Coming to my need, with about a budget of under or equal to 15 L, I had specific needs if I were to buy a new vehicle this time. My top priorities were not including the price and mileage for once. I definitely needed over 100Bhp of power, minimum of 200mm of ground clearance, 6-7 seater and a reliable and trustworthy company that can address problems in my car if any cropped up.

Among all contenders were the usual suspects ranging from the Brezza, all the way until the XUV (including the EcoSport, TUV300, Scorpio, Creta & Duster and Terrano among others). I did have a consideration for the Innova and the versatile Lodgy which I will come to perhaps in a later post but for now lets stick to what was discussed earlier.
I had three vehicles from the Mahindra stable to consider, one from everyone else.

The Duster exit the race as its interiors were below par for the price. It is no doubt the best for tough roads but that’s about it. It’s not going to lighten your mood when you are inside it.

And for perking up the same thing, the Terrano does no better for more money. The Creta is the best seller among all of this and without a single doubt the most luxurious feeling car of the lot while you are inside it. But paying over 16L for just features and no real other meat does not cut ice with me, so after a rather long while the Creta was out of the list. It was hard to let it go, but I had no other option.

Coming back to the topic, the BRV does not feel like the Mobilio. In all honesty Honda have done much better for this vehicle and they have put their heart and soul into making this vehicle. The front facia with the rather bold chrome strip shows its presence, and the headlamps have a charm of their own when you see the car in flesh.

The tail lamps though seem like its older sibling, have been beautifully though about and are chunky enough for the look and feel part. The dash is not bland anymore and though it does not offer everything everyone else offers, it does not have any bits and pieces of gadgetry peeping out of the dash unnecessarily.

Its uniform, has the City and Jazz look and feel and Honda have learnt it the hard way that the customers cannot be sold crap like the older Mobilio. I did take a test drive of the BRV and I must say that Honda undoubtedly have one fo the best steering wheels in the market.

If you want to know what is Butter Smooth, drive any other car and drive a Honda. You will understand it yourself. The steering just slices through the road in such precision that I was left astounded how well rounded the product is.

I was a bit disappointed with the rather idiotic stereo system in place. But that is something one can replace easily so it should not be an issue as such. That said, Honda has boldly made the dash fully black and it lends a certain business aura to the car.

Another point to mention is the seats. This car comes with two captain seats, which are well rounded and cushion you with ample thigh and back support, a middle bench that is 40-60 splittable, and slidable as well and a rear bench which is much much more spacious than the older mobilio. If you really want to know, I did not even venture out for a test drive of the Mobilio earlier just due to this one fact that an adult could not even get himself to get into the rear bench.

We all know and understand that there are challenges to these kinds of seats since it sits above the wheel arches, and I was quite happy that in the BRV the seats are more accessible compared to older siblings. However that said, I can certify that me being 5’11”, I can comfortably sit in the rear bench alongside another adult without much issue. But that’s about it. You could seat three kids or two adults at best. The rear airconditioning must keep these people in good comfort hopefully.

The seats themselves are full leather with high quality professional stitching which speaks volumes about the effort Honda has taken to make this a well rounded product. I must point out that the middle passenger in the middle row is likely to get inconvenienced a bit due to somewhat of a raised bottom portion of the seat and perhaps I feel Honda could have worked on this aspect a bit more.
Switch the car on and you can hardly believe that it is on. With or without AC. No I mean it really. Step on the pedal and with AC on the car is slow but steady to react. After all its got a 100 horses and it must show up somewhere and somehow. Step on the gas a bit more and it takes that tiny moment for the car to react and lunge forward somewhat unpredictably a bit, but nothing major to worry about.

The sweet spots of this car lie in the way the soft clutch has been designed and the rather slick gear shift with a six speed gearbox and that buttery smooth steering only means you have an awesome combination to enjoy the car with.

The one anohter aspect of this is the torque. You need to really drive the car slowly to believe it. I mean really slowly. Like 10kmph at 5th gear and bring it up to a full 100kph in the same gear.

Absolute beatuy of an engine. You know sometimes its not exactly about brute force power to fly about exactly but things like no gear shifts needed at super low speeds that make this vehicle an enjoyable one.

Then there is thing about ground clearance. After all Honda calls it an SUV while in true spirit its a much much better designed Mobilio in my opinion. Anyways one of the traits of an SUV is ground clearance and the BRV has 210mm of it, beating all other rivals almost. What this translates to is something I have not exactly been able to measure with the short test drive that I took up. However I did go obliquely across two deep potholes with a rather uneven mound in between and the car did not scrape anywhere below. However if you live in Bangalore like I do, you would very well know there are some roads with manhole lids the size of road humps and the road itself is much below them. Another case in point is severe water logging during heavy rains in underpasses. I am really not sure how the BRV will perform in these two scenarios. A third simpler scenario is to keep a water bottle on the road and go over it to see if it topples. I could not verify either of these cases and unless I get a real chance to, I cannot really say this would perform like perhaps a Scorpio would. I can confidently say that I have tried these on a scorpio and it has had absolutely no issues in handling them.
Being pioneers in seat configurability the BRV offers varieties of ways to generate space both in the boot as well as in the middle rows using the 40-60 split modes. Whichever situation, space should never be a problem with BRV as this is what the car is all about for its money. That said, with all seats upright with passengers, the rear boot space is going to be somewhat optimal if not minimal and it can handle only a defined amount of luggage. Nothing to piss you off though really.
So what about diesel and automatic then? Frankly everyone knows Honda’s automatic CVT transmissions are among the best. Having paddle shifters means handling the car like using a video game console to shift gears with your thumbs. However until now the CVTs were sluggish and was intended for more of mundane driving without the thrill of driver defined gear shifts. With the introduction of the revamped CVT in the newly launched amaze, Honda claims it has addressed some issues with the familar rubber banding effect of its original CVT. At the time of writing this article, the CVT was not available for a test drive and hence I cannot comment on how it feels until I drive one. So I will reserve my comments for later except however to say here that this will be one of the most effortless cruiser both within and outside the city for tired souls after a hard day’s work.

I have been chafferured around in a diesel Amaze and found it to be quite noisy on the inside. This is very unlike Honda and it clearly shows they did not research with it properly and just went in for a hurried launch party. However in the revised Amaze they claim to have taken care of this issue now. The earlier one felt like the first Hyundai Accent CRDi which had that distinct clatter all the time. One hopes that the diesel BRV will muffle these sounds even more with all the corrective feedback taken. At the time of this writing, the diesel BRV was unavailable as well due to which I could not test drive the same. It is bound to be a pocket friendly car for sure with mileages of over 20kmpl for sure. And a light clutch on the diesel as well means amazing driveability on daily basis.

But would you buy a diesel for close to 16L that has a 1.5 litre engine, or would you rather buy a Scorpio for 15.5L giving a mileage of 15kmpl, for a 2.2 litre engine generating 120bhp, or a XUV 500 for 16L giving a mileage of 11kmpl but with a 2.2 L 140bhp engine?

The choice is all yours frankly as each have its positives and negatives. Ultimately its about value for money and driveability that are the only two factors that makes a person decide what he or she would like.
Only time will tell whether the BRV will sell in huge numbers and be a hit for Honda. For sure this is not a Brezza or an Ecosport or even a Duster to sell 100,000 units in six months. But it sure will have steady sales once people understand how Honda has managed to engineer this car. And its long term reliability, acceptance for its strong virtues will decide whether or not Honda’s long term fortunes will be impacted positively or not. Honda has begun to take customer feedback and work on it which is a good sign and like Toyota the engines are legendary beyond measure which still is helping the company maintain its strong growth phase.

As CarDekho put it, if you a family man with old parents and young kids and you want a fuss free car that has SUV/MUV traits, is comfortable to be in, and keeps your senses calm on long drives, then the BRV is for you.

On a side note I did drive the Scorpio automatic which I will talk about a little later. The more I drive other automatics, the more and more I feel the Honda’s CVT just like the Nissan CVT are vehicles that other manufacturers’ products cannot beat in the long run.
So if you have 15-16L, need a great ground clearance, want to seat more people, want to have fun with a slick shifting manual or an absolutely smooth to cruise CVT, dont mind a lesser engine capacity, and prefer great mileage, reliability, and peace of mind buy the BRV.

This car is not about looks. Its about attention to detail, and character. The BRV won’t disappoint you.