Good Car, Poor Response on D Mode

This is my review having 17 years of driving experience & driven this car for 5 kms. I own Ritz AT (CVT gear shift) & driven many ATs in US & UK.

Exterior Like Alto 800. No specific change except swift back headlamps & slightly bigger rear lights. Boot was ok for a trip of 2 days not more. Front grill looks nice.

Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) Interior looks a segment higer. Plastic Quality is hard, Piano finish, Interated stereo is nice. I am 5'11" & a person of 5'8" was able to sit behind me which is not the case in old Alto (My wife 5'2" cries for leg space). Front seats space is not great though. Steering & side of dashboard was hitting my left knee. Seats are good, not excellent. People will not comfortable on drives beyond 100 kms. Rear seats are good for short journeys, Strictly in budget. Front power windows are nice touch, however wrongly placed & it needs lot of pratice to operate them below hand brakes. Audio quality from integrated stereo was at par. If needed, I can close AC vents of side which is a nice touch & not to give cooling to seats or door like previous versions.

Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox Its the same proven K10 engine which operates Estilo, old K10 & AStar (all Out of Production), Wagon R, Celerio, Stingray. Fuel Economy can't comment on a 5 km drive.

However Car is pathetic in D mode (Which is super dooper excellent in Ritz, SX4, Civic, Accord, Vento, Polo, Yaris, Vios, Innova, Vernas, corolla, camary etc. all ATs I drove). May be I am expecting too much from this AMT box, but Don't dare drive in D mode. Upshifts & Downshifts are strongly & badly felt as a jerk (Again I have so far driven Ritz AT for 11000 kms which is fantastic). I engage D mode, accelarate, & what the hell? A strong jerk when it moves further & upshifted. Big jerk again when upshifting further automatically. Then applied breaks slowly for downshift & jerks again?. Big disappointment. I thought of getting down immediately. Then thought, lets try Manual mode (like triptronics in German, Japanese, Korean cars). I was relaxed. Finally I saw some movement in car without jerk & with AC. If you are planning for D mode to drive, pls don't buy or else don't complain.

Ride Quality & Handling I mostly drove bad roads & bumps, & strongly recommend trye upsize. Felt a small pit as a thud which never felt in Ritz (Again bad comparision). Handling was easy, nice & quick. Car is easy to drive & park.

Final Words Good budget car. You get feature pack Alto VXI AMT (4,38,000 Gurgaon) for a price of Celerio LXI which is only bigger in some dimensions & may be interior quality. Personally speaking, I was seriously considering this as 2nd car, however after this experience of drive, I am 90%convinced not to opt for it.

Areas of improvement

1: Improve or tune AMT in D mode Please or remove D mode.

2. Why the hell Length was reduced. Car already has length as per tax rebate standards. They should have gone with same length or give back those 30 mm leg room inside which you chopped.

3: Height needs to be increased further by atleast 40 mm. It's difficult to get in.