Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Hyundai Accent 2005 Posted by Hello

Monday, March 14, 2005

The Test drives

I have always maintained that come what may, I will never give money to "phoren ppl".. some kind of misplaced patriotism .. whatever.. but i insisted... So all my pointers were pointing to a Good Ol Tata Car.. No shitty looking maruti's for me please..
So the first thing I did was go to the Concorde showroom in Chennai and ask for a test drive of the new Indigo MARINA-diesel(black one please). Marina the model with everything in it was well within the budget and being a diesel one was gonna save me some moolah. So with the intention of buying I sat in the car and started.
Now, a black marina with all that chrome at the right places looks really sexy from the outside. But looks quite below average on the inside. Plastics everywhere and the finishing on them is yucks. Very 3rd class fittings.
Ok now the drive. I thought that may be becow it is a test vehicle it is behving the way it was but I was later told it was not a test vehicle. These was no pickup to speak of. It was like driving an elephant. The turning radius was good though and handling was ok. But the engine was pathetic and there was pep at all.
Ok enuff on that. So I went away telling the sales guy about my feelings and he promised to bring the petrol one next day to my office.
The next placewe stopped was at MPL Hyundai.
Here I had a 20-80 between getz-accent. But my better half had the accent all the way. The test drive was amazing. The gear shift was butter and the pep was peppy.. After a 2 km frive we were feeling quite exhilirated. Then I drove the getz too and it was as good with far far better quality interioirs than the Accent. Very modern looking and heavy vehicle with interior space equaling the accent. I was OK with getz too accept for the look from the outside. It was looking like a big Zen or an Indica.
My wife was hell bent on shape and size. And that should be loong and big.
Ok so accent it is.
Then I went in the buying mode and researched a lot on accent reviews and problems and deals and discounts and loans and stuff on the internet.
A week later I felt confident about our choice and infornmation on the discounts and deals. And went ahead with it.
The Accent GLE 2005 is the same as the GVS model without the fog lamps and rear wiper. PLUS it has new beige interiors...oooooh.. beige with black... that did it..

How it all started

While I was happy and content driving my balck Honda CBZ, doing all kindsa chores on it. The rest of my family thought otherwise. They thought, its about time we graduated to a car. I somehow fel uncomfortable with the idea of driving around in a 4-5 lac thingie on chennai roads with all the traffic and worrying all the time about who is there on your left right back before u do anything with the steering wheeland accelerator. Plus I never felt the need. But my better half had a mile long list of reasons and I could not reason out those.
But anyway, as it always is supposed to happen, like a good partner I listened and a decision was made to go for a 4wheeler in the year 2005.
The whole January went away deciding on the budget and February in deciding the make and model.After extensive surfing, long discussions with elders and chats with friends and collegues, it was only in March that I started taking test drives of the cars......