Perfect cross over for a city

We never had Hyundai Venue as our first choice when we thought of upgrading from our existing 8 year old Suzuki Swift ZXi. Our requirements were simple. We live in a Tier 2 city and so wanted something that could be used within the city as a daily ride, for me as well as my better half, easy to maintain and with a good mileage. We were seriously considering VW Polo, Ford Ecosport and Kia Sonet as the prospective next car. I always long for a VW, be it the looks or the ever assuring thud while closing the door, Polo had been a dream car for me. But the maintenance cost was the bummer here. Also, the features and the interiors feels a bit outdated. Nevertheless, it remained on our list. Ford - amazing customer engagement by the staff. Booked for a test drive and they promptly followed it up and brought the car to my door step. Took a ride around the city and the executive was super helpful in explaining the features, service cost and the maintenance. Unfortunately, the very next week Ford made the decision that broke the hearts of many Ford enthusiasts. Then comes Sonet. It was an all together a different story here. The local dealer was not at all customer friendly. It felt like going to a crowded SBI branch. No one cares why you were there. Pathetic is the word. I loved the looks and the features of the car and wanted to take a test drive. They straight away said they can't provide a test drive. If I make a booking, they could arrange one in a few days. And to make it worse, came across a guy there who was trying to get back the booking amount and the executive were kinda blaming him for making the booking without understanding the waiting period. That was it, happily left the showroom. Whose loss is it anyways? Now that two out of three original choices are out of question, we started looking wide. Here comes Venue. To be honest, I never liked the looks of Venue. It always felt a few inches short. Anyways, a test drive was booked for the DCT variant. In a few hours, test drive car was there, but an iMT one. The moment i started taking a stroll, I totally fell for it. An absolutely city friendly car. Thought a bit apprehensive in the beginning, iMT was a breeze , along with Hill hold assist, worked like a charm. Feature laden, 6 air bags, convenience of iMT and good fuel economy, we straight away went ahead with booking the SX(O) iMT Petrol variant. Yes, it is not a value for money variant, but I always tend to buy the fully loaded variants and doesn't like after market additions. Now, with the chip shortage in place and a huge demand due to the impending festival season, it took more than 8 weeks for our car to be delivered. No qualms in the registration process, everything was taken care off by the amazing sales lead and our car was delivered in a simple manner. Now coming to the things that I don't like in this car. First thing is that, from a drivers point of view, there is no auto dimming rear view mirror. It felt like a major miss for a full option car that costs over 13 lakhs on road. Second thing is the gear lever and the surrounding area looks from a basic car. I mean look at Kiger or Nexon , they have a more premium look because of the piano black finish and the design of storage . By the way people used to ask me why i didn't went for Nexon. The reason is Tata itself. From my experience of previously owning a Tata car, they don't believe in after sales. A decade ago, they had bad cars and equally bad service. Now their cars might be good, but the service remains bad. It is going to be further bad given that the sales have multiplied and Tata doesn't have increased the service capabilities. Coming back to Venue, third thing I didn't like is the vibration in the doors while playing a high bass music. Another thing i didn't like is that the head lights, though a projector type, is still halogen. Space constrain in the rear seat is a known fact and so not going to elaborate. Another thing is that the spare wheel is a 15" steel wheel. Can't Hyundai afford to give a full size tire as a spare ? That's it. I hope you find this helpful. Thank you. Be safe.