i20 Elite Experience

After going through the reviews, I thought  to write one on my experience with Hyundai i20 elite.

I was on the search of an upgrade from my maruthi 800 (5 speed) for about 6 months. I was watching the reviews of various cars and finally shortlisted i20 elite & amaze. But decided to buy i20 elite sportz petrol mainly viewing the online reviews and the features it offers. Almost all reviews given excellent rating or elite and the features it offered for the price was also good. When I decided to buy it in June, Hyundai had increased its price twice by about Rs.26,000  and handling charges from Rs.8900 to Rs.12000 (ex show room price for sportz petrol was about Rs.6.53 lakhs, on road including B to B insurance is Rs.7.45 lakhs at Thiruvananthapruam). Sales team of the dealer was also upbeat about elite. In fact they were even saying that they were not interested to canvass elite as there is no incentive for selling elite compared to other models. According to them this car will sell without promo. I booked sportz, petrol, redpassion. Though the waiting period is 2 months, they offered delivery within 20 days and insisted to pay full price upfront for forwarding the booking to the Company. According to them unless full /substantial payment is made they will not be able to forward the order to the company. Hence I have to ask the bank to release the full loan amount. When I went to enquire about the delivery after  the agreed twenty days,  though they apologize about the delay but to my surprise they offered that I can cancel the order if  I wish (this was before the Jazz’s introduction). Such was the response on the sale of I20. Though the responses upset me a bit, I was consoling myself that I had ordered a great product and waited for it.

Took the car on 6th July. At the outset I liked the vehicle.  However, later when I inspected the car, came to know that the that the leather warped steering wheel , leather gear know and  boot lamp was absent (which was offered as standard for sportz version in the brochures) In fact I am not sure what other features they had withdrawn. When I contacted Hyundai got a standard reply, they had withdrawn these from the sportz version from 1-4-2015. Thus after about an increase in price of about Rs.26,000 and handling charges by Rs.3500, they had withdrawn many features from the sportz version. This was another instance which I felt the company was unfair to me.

After a week had a trip to Tiruchendur about 190 km one way. It was a good drive except I was really upset by the pickup. Frankly, the car struggled in 4th and top gear  after slight braking. The power of third gear is much poor than my old maruthi 800 !! Frequent gear shifts necessary even in long drives on highways. On mileage it clocked slightly over 13km/litre on the trip. On the whole, I had to say that my upbeat is over now, it did not match the expectations.

Good looksBad pickup, fuel economy, frequent price increase & feature deletions