I had earlier booked a red Volkswagen Taigun but later cancelled it & booked the Kushaq.
BHPian sid2017 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Finally, my Tornado Red Kushaq 1.5 DSG Style with 6 Airbags was delivered last Thursday.
Why red
My three and a half-year-old son said he will only sit in a Red Car. Now that the color was decided, our search for a new car started in March 2021.
Why automatic
I have had an 8-year-old blue Volkswagen Polo (1.2L Diesel). As much as I loved that car, the engine did have a lot of turbo lag and I had to perform a lot of gear changes in order to keep it in the powerband. This used to get very tiring in traffic and I thought now is the good time to move to automatics.
Background
I had given my hopes for buying a new car since we wanted to buy a new home. We started looking for a home in our budget in March 2021 thinking that homes might have become cheaper in the pandemic, but we quickly realized that house prices has increased very sharply and inflation had been very high.
Inflation in car prices has been nothing compared to house prices. We dropped the plan of buying a house for 2-3 years to let that high inflation average out. My wife gave me a go-ahead for purchasing a new car.
Research process
Kia Seltos
The no-brainer, actually. Red Seltos 1.4 DCT was supposed to be booked in March 2021 and get delivered around May 2021. The test drive was great, SA was helpful, Chinchawad Kia dealership experience was professional (Baner Kia dealership experience was bad). The engine was peppy, gearbox was smooth, ride was stiff but looks covered for it. All in all a great car to upgrade to. My wife loved it.
All good, what could go wrong? Before booking the car, searched for issues on Team-BHP. I was not aware of GNCAP barely 3-star worthiness of Seltos since I had not been following car news when GNCAP ratings for Kia Seltos were disclosed. Explained to wife the reason to drop the Kia Seltos. It is really sad because Kia Seltos is such a nice vehicle to miss out on.
Hyundai Creta
I never liked the looks of new Creta although my wife was absolutely fine with it. The interiors are nice, but the central panel somehow does give you a feeling of being loose. The dashboard seems to be too plain and boring. The wow factor aka “panoramic sunroof” is there and gives an airy feeling inside the cabin. I test drove 1.4L DCT, test drive was good, ride quality in the city is excellent.
But the Creta has become too common now & the waiting period is insane. I had safety concerns also with Creta (sharing the platform with Seltos), so dropped the Creta from the list.
The worst dealership experience I had in my year-long search has been with Hyundai dealers. Even if other dealers/manufacturers are selling fewer vehicles, they do have or will arrange the variant of your choice for a test drive. But not with Hyundai dealerships. They are not even interested in selling you a Creta. I asked one of the salespeople for a test drive of any variant, he said why do you need a test drive, sir, just book the Creta, everybody does the same. I visited 3 showrooms, none of them had it for display forget about test drives. Finally, Kundan motors were able to arrange a test drive after long persistence since I did not want to reject a car without a test drive.
Jeep Compass
Jeep dealership experience had been absolutely best. I have test driven petrol automatic 3 times, diesel manual and automatic once each. Interiors are fantastic, quality overall is great. The manual diesel is absolutely a hoot to drive. If buying a manual would have been an option, I guess this is the easiest choice to make. Diesel automatic was also good but out of budget. I did not like the Petrol Automatic. It is a little slow to react to pedal input and it almost felt like the gearbox was confused a lot of times on varying speeds. If driven in a relaxed manner with gentle pedal push, the petrol automatic behaves as per expectation. Fuel efficiency with my kind of driving was around 9-10 KMPL in the city which is good enough for a vehicle of this size. Jeep should have provided at-least sports mode to make this one more enjoyable as the rest of the car is wonderful.
VW Taigun/Skoda Kushaq
Both the dealership experiences were great with respect to test drives. I test drove 1.5 DSG Taigun/Kushaq. Both were almost similar to drive and liked them both. I booked Red Taigun on 24-Oct-2021 as I had familiar experience with the dealership.
As days went by, I started seeing Red Kushaq and Red Taigun on road. I started liking Red Kushaq more and more. I cancelled the Taigun booking and booked the Red Kushaq.
Buying process
Booked the Kushaq at Akoya Motors, Baner, Pune and the experience with them has been very good. Got a discount on insurance by sharing quotes from other vendors like HDFC Ergo. Took the 4-year service plan at 15,999 as well as opted for an extended warranty. The car does not have electrically foldable ORVMs. My car was delivered on 27-Jan-2022 and the circular from Skoda about Rs 15000 discount came on 28-Jan-2022. I sent an email to Zac which was forwarded to Skoda customer care. They did not give me any cashback but gave in writing that Auto ORVMs will be installed free of cost by year-end.
Other than that, the overall experience with Akoya Motors has been pleasant. Nowadays, there is certain pleasantness in buying a car which is not much in demand (but you love the car), you are treated well and you get the car in reasonable time-frame. This is so unlike what you experience in a Hyundai dealership (if you are buying Creta, with other cars especially Alcazar the experience has been good).
Changed the tyres from MRF Wanderer 205/55/R17 to Continental UC6 215/55/R17 the same evening.
Drive experience
Have already driven 200 km.
Some observations:
- Thunderstorm rattling on first day evening from the left door which just vanished with good night sleep. No rattling since then.
- Ride quality is very good but you do feel large/sharp potholes.
- 1.5DSG is super fun to drive and seems efficient too with its ACT technology. It gets activated a lot in city driving also and is seamless.
- The cabin is spacious for four people. The middle seat is only for a small kid.
- Interior quality is almost as good as what competition offers (Except MG Astor).
- Audio quality is very good.
- Its compact size with clever packaging inside and great engine/gearbox makes it a very practical car for a small urban family.
Note: Huge thanks to Team-BHP members whose posts have been instrumental in increasing my awareness about car buying/selling, getting an NCB certificate etc or just about anything.
Keyword: My Skoda Kushaq 1.5 Style DSG: Buying & initial experience