Initial Ownership of Alto

All,

Its been quite some time now where i have been roaming around in Carwale forums (approx 3 months) reading & posting some threads. Thought of introducing myself and providing my intial experience with Alto.

My self Jeyaprakash, software engineer in Bangalore working for TechMahindra.
What i Like: Cricket, Music, My Yamaha, & now my Alto
What i dont like: Pathetic road condition in various strechtes in blr city

Coming to my Alto. I have clocked 3000 kms in 2.5 months now.

How i decided

My requirement was a car which has good FE with good reputation and for a budget of around 3lakhs. And there was an immediate option available in the market which was named Alto. I had taken words of my friend who owns an Alto for 5 years and his good words on this car.

Though i liked the looks of i10, i had to settle for Alto as i couldn't stretch my budget for i10. If i wanted to go for i10, i certainly want 1.2 kappa. So certainly it was out of my reach.

Went to Bimal, RNS & Pratham dealers to check out the prices & offers provided by them. Since i went to all these showrooms during their closing time (around 7-8 pm), they were in a hurry to leave office. But i was very much impressed with the Customer Service provided by Bimal. That was excellent and made me to stick with them.

I was just learning driving then, so didnt take a long TD. Had a 3-4 kms TD in whitefield road. Was impressed with the Power Steering initially.

Then did some negotiations for the accessories and finalized on Alto Lxi (Bright Red).

The dealer had certainly kept their promise and delivered my car on the date & time i had asked for. It took just 4 working days for them to deliver the car. I ensured to do all Pre-Delivery checks before taking delivery of the car.

It was a quite a good evening when i purchased my first car (11th July 2009). The ODO reading was 19km.

First 3 days experience

Once the dealer provided the delivery, i had asked the sales person to arrange some driver to deliver the car at a temple near my home. The plan was to do the Pooja and myself will take family for a small drive and park it home. Once the pooja was done, i was very nervous to drive and some how managed to go for a round. The funniest part on the first drive was, my daughter (4.5 yrs old) who was seeing me driving (actually sweating out in traffic) for the first time gave a good advice. She told me to take care of the steering and she would take care of the gear controls . We laughed all the way home.

2nd day i did some practising in the morning & in the night.

3rd day i never expected myself to go & hit a bus which was starting from a bus stop. But that happened and i was heart broken . He had suddenly come to the right when i also wanted to take right. There was a big dent on the 3rd day of my new car. I didnt sleep properly for 3days. As it was a new car, i didnt want to take it immediately to service station and as suggested by my friends, i had to wait until my first service. During my first service, since the ASS didnt have body repairs, i was not able to do at that time as well. Then did the repair at a later stage.

3rd day hit had brought lot of calmness in my driving. Initially i was very nervous and after i had hit, It made me think and i just started taking driving as a casual affair.

First highway experience

After i had done my 1000kms in city, we had planned for a Bangalore - Chennai visit. By the time, i had become pretty confident of driving. So we ventured for this trip starting early in the morning from Bangalore. The route followed was Bangalore-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Vellore-Chennai. The highway driving was a an absolute pleasure and really enjoyed driving with out much use of clutch & brakes ;)

The mileage i had got was 19.5 with 100% AC on. May be i will get more after i become a real good driver.

About Dealer

BIMAL is one of the best dealers around. They certainly follow a defined process and i would say I AM IMPRESSED. There is certainly a followup call to check if every thing is fine. Even after going for my 1st Service, i had received a call the next day the engineer called & checked if everything is fine after the service. Such was their work ethic, they sent a Sales person to my home to check if i am happy with the car & happy with the service. I would suggest this dealer in Bangalore

About Alto

As everyone knows more about Alto now, it is peppy & very good for city driving. I really liked the power steering and AC chills off immediately. As it is a common problem, the pulling power goes down when A/C on. This i noticed much on city driving. On highways, i didnt see any power reduction when A/C is on.

My Mileage stats: 16.5 in City(40% A/C on), 19.5 in Highways (Full A/C on)

Link to the photos here

Post edited to correct the link to the Album.

Excellent review Jey. Your narration of flow of event is superb.Good to know that you are happy with your car and the car dealer. I have also heard quite good feedback about BIMEL.

Congratulations Man..Drive safe..

All the best...

Thanks Jey for sharing your experience.  Very well written, and good photos

The thread has been renamed & moved to Review Section so that the purpose is served better.

Thanks Pankaj. I was in dilemma whether to add it in Intro or Review section, but went ahead and added it in Intro.

@Sujit & Alok. Thanks Guys. Will certainly have a safe drive.

I suggest, intro part you can post it in the Introduction Section (start a new thread), and can also give therein a link to this thread.

Please do keep updating this thread with your experiences & observations.

Nicely written review. I saw G-sports seat covers in your car. How much it costed?

@Bijs: G-Sport seat covers i had got it for 5k. Actual rate was 5600 but got in on discount with the dealer.

In all below are the accessories i got from dealer

1. Body side beading
2. Underchassis coating
3. Teflon coating (as Bright red was non-metallic cover)
4. Floor Mats
5. LHS Mirror
6. G-Sport art seat leather
7. Streeing cover
8. Body cover
9. Idol & Car Perfume

All these above accessories totally cost me 10K. Some were given as free & some on discounts.

After delivery i had fitted the following in AutoShop, Bangalore

1. Panasonic HU - 5500/- (Not remembering the model number)
2. JBL front & Rear speakers (plank for Rear speakers)
3. AutoCop Center Locking system (Keyless entry)
5. Sun flim (Flimpro)
6. Antenna

Total for the above cost me Rs.15500/-

Alto is extremely user friendly car,it will give you better fuel economy esp on highway it can reach 23 in real life situations.