There is no better car for around Rs 20 lakh that can drop a gear and disappear but its city fuel efficiency hurts my wallet.
BHPian Darth Sai recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Purchase decision overview / Buying experience
We didn’t have the Virtus GT in mind initially when looking for a new car. Test drove the i20 Asta DCT, Sonet Diesel AT and DCT. We did briefly look at the Harrier but we decided it was too big for us and our running did not warrant a diesel and the costs associated with it, DPF issues with modern diesels was the final nail in the coffin.
I found the aforementioned Hyundai and Kia cars to be of high quality and did consider buying the i20 Asta DCT as we all agreed that the Sonet did not justify the price premium and that the i20 had a slightly better rear seat and almost equally good boot space for our use case (mostly short drives in the city with less than 10 airport and 5 long drives a year).
My dad being a safety freak and equipped with the knowledge that I was not a sedate driver wasn’t convinced with the decision of buying a Hyundai/Kia even though we agreed they have come a long way in terms of safety. My mom also thought the road presence-to-price ratio of the i20 was low and the hunt was on again.
This time safety was the priority and after briefly discussing the Nexon we thought the automatic (my dad had to be able to drive it in case he needed to, having driven automatics most of his life outside of India we weren’t sure if he could handle the hassle of shifting and keeping up with the Indian traffic without exerting himself) was not a great option even though it ticked the safety box.
Me and my dad agreed that nothing could come close to the VW cars when it came to safety for that price and the 1.5 EVO engine and DSG combo was just the cherry on top of the cake. We booked a test drive on the VW website and I received a call from Mody VW and they brought home a blue Virtus GT. Even though I had seen the car on the road sometimes, looking at the car up close it was just beautiful with the clean lines and proportioned just right, although I believe the wheels could have been a bit bigger to complete the package.
The test drive was less than half an hour through the city and most of the time was spent in low-moderate traffic with occasional open stretches. I told the sales rep that I wanted to hit some speed breakers and some bad patches somewhat hard to see how it handles bad patches and he asked me to go for it.
There were four people in the car and it never came close to bottoming out even when I was trying to. The sales rep told us that only white and silver were available for immediate delivery and red, gray had at least a 3-month wait and blue, yellow had a wait of 2 months. I wanted to check out the cars in-person to decide between white and reflex silver.
I reached the showroom and we drove to the stockyard and service center almost 20 kilometers away in a 1.0 Taigun. This was an opportunity to rethink my decision as I didn’t even think about the Taigun till that point. I was told that the Taigun GT was 80k more expensive than the Virtus GT and it had lesser boot space and 9mm more ground clearance. Seemed like a no-brainer to me to save 80k and get the larger more handsome-looking car.
After reaching the yard I decided that that even though the white and silver were kind of similar from afar the silver had some sheen to it and some glistening particles in the paint (I’m guessing it’s metallic water based paint). Went with the silver and took delivery in about 10 days when my dad was coming to India which gave us more than enough time to get the loan stuff sorted out.
We took my dad straight from the airport to the showroom which was on our way home and took delivery at close to 10 PM. I should thank our sales representative Nagaraju from Mody VW for arranging delivery at such an hour. Since most of the showroom staff left home the delivery experience was uneventful but it never did not feel not special. They only left me with 30kms of fuel in the car, considering that the showroom was kind of away from the city and it was 10 PM it would have been decent of them to leave a bit more fuel in that car.
Initial ownership experience
I checked with the staff of the showroom if there was any running-in period with the car as I was planning on taking it on a 500-kilometer round trip a couple of days after buying it. Our sales rep confirmed that there wasn’t any running-in period and that many customers take delivery and routinely drive home more than 500 kilometers away.
I did not push the car beyond 120 kmph on the trip. Even though the steering is kind of light at low speeds, it weighs up beautifully at highway speeds and it felt like a tank at those speeds. Having driven close to 200 kmph for long stretches at a time in other countries in some great cars I could tell that the Virtus GT was designed for munching miles on the highway.
The 500 kilometer trip was uneventful and there were a couple of bad stretches of road that worried me on the onward journey that I absolutely flew past on my return journey even though it was dark because of how well the car took those stretches earlier. I was barely tired at the end of the day after a 500 kilometer trip.
Akin to my favorite car review channel Carwow’s “This leads me to 5 annoying things about the Virtus GT”.
Cons
- The mileage is a pain, I routinely get between 6 or 7 in the city and even though I have gotten between 16-18 on the highway runs, since most of my running is in the city the mileage really hurts the wallet.
- During high speeds when I hit a bump that is unavoidable there is a heart-wrenching thud from the front suspension.
- The annoying front driver window which I haven’t gotten fixed because they said it would at least add a couple of hours to the service time and I had a trip lined up right after the service. I also noticed that during this service they filled close to 1 liter of engine oil.
- The DSG is sometimes confused in traffic and hangs on to gears longer than required. This is surprising as it sometimes upshifts to 3rd and 4th on some very steep slopes fully loaded.
- The high beams and sometimes the AC do not match the standard of the car.
Pros
- There is no better car around 20 lacs that can drop a gear and disappear and handle winding roads in its stride.
- The cruise control is great for killing miles but it’s slightly aggressive accelerating to the set speed.
- The console and audio are great, even though both could have been better I’m happy with it, wish there was a boot button inside but that can be fixed with some VCDS coding along with the speed chimes and some other stuff. I’m very curious how setting the XDS differential to strong will affect the car’s handling.
- The ground clearance being on-par with so many wanna be SUVs has been a boon on Indian roads.
- The car’s looks charm me and the bystanders and whenever I pull hard at a stoplight the exhaust sounds quite sporty and attracts some looks. I’m curious about an exhaust mod now.
I’m absolutely delighted with my decision to purchase this bug and will keep you updated on any mods or problems that come up. I’m ending the post with a couple of scenic locations the Millennium Falcon has been to.
Keyword: Absolutely delighted with my VW Virtus GT: Buying & initial experience