[benzinblut]

Very nice analysis smartcat. I too am a fan of such analysis and love to put down comparisons on paper and scale them. Very well done

[RaguHolla]

Gr8 Analysis so far Smartcat...

Can some one tell me what should be minimum headroom for 5' 7"? A kind of guideline or chart w.r.t person height vs Legroom, Headroom will be gr8..

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by vikrantj

@Gilead . I understand more rankings are yet to come and I am waiting eagerly for them too. All that I am asking for is a fair comparison at each stage. So that whichever car ranks higher in the charts , ranks high in all stages of comparisons. Here I see a sort of averaging out effect. To illustrate my point let us say take example of two compare point say A and B . Car 1 gets 5 points for A and 5 points for B totalling 10 and Car 2 has 9 points for A and 1 point for B . Now from a consumer perspective Car 1 is a better since it's score in all compare points is balanced , while Car 2 fares good in A and pathetically in B. But ranking wise these two cars are ranked equal.
Hopefully I have managed to confuse you

Vikrantj, good point. This is exactly the scenario that demonstrates why we should use product of the scores across different categories and not addition (as I have explained in details in my earlier post).

By using products, the net score for Car 1 will be 5x5 = 25, and that for Car 2 will be 9*1 = 9. Thus, really bad performance in any one category (Car 2 getting 1 in category B) is penalized by the product. At least a decent score (e.g. 5 for Car 1 in both categories) is required to get an overall decent score. Note that by product, the pathetic score of 1 in category B is NOT cancelled out by a great score on 9 in category A.

[ACM]

Smartcat:

1) TATA has introduced a new variant of Indigo CS - BS4 version, for petrol and Diesel both. - Though you would not have all the feature details, you could consider the ones on the site itself. - They include - Bluetooth enabled system, blikers on the ORVMs.
2) For the Future ONLY: Size of interiors in ltrs and total leg room (sum of Min front leg room and max rear leg room or Sum of max front leg room and min rear leg room) would be better indicators of the interior space. Honda City would not fare as well on this parameter compared to the Manza. Check it out in person. When we take just the rear leg room into consideration the extent to which the front seat goes ahead or backword becomes a factor, but it means nothing as we need to leave a uniform amount of space in the front before getting down to rear leg room. - For future only.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by tortoiseNhare

I hope the data gets periodically updated for use in the years to come when I might be on the lookout for a Sedan.

Will try to do that!

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

I don't have big feet, but yes, I also noticed this in the Punto. But then, I don't use the dead pedal on my car even on long highway drives, so this isn't a big deal for me.

Maybe its my driving technique that's wrong. Or perhaps my height makes it uncomfortable for me to position my leg on the floorboard.

Originally Posted by k!ng_@thur

One more thought, qualities like performance, drivability, safety etc come under "benefits" and mileage and (ownership less resale price) would give the costs. Believe all of us doing comparos would look at cost-benefit analysis.

I have heard about 'cost benefit analysis' but no idea how to go about doing it. Will leave it you!

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

About the FE figures, IMO, the ARAI figures need not be considered. Overall figures of FE from ACI is the most reliable data I have ever come across.

Personally, I agree with you on ACI numbers, but many claim to get higher mileage than what's quoted in the magazine. Since ARAI tests are standardized, using those numbers for this ranking will be less controversial. Perhaps we could use both ACI & ARAI numbers, and assign equal weightage to their accuracy and rank them accordingly?

About on road price and points given accordingly to the price. This is unfair as the sedans belong to different segments.

We are not suggesting that Tata Marina is a better car than a Honda City even for a moment - just because it has a higher ranking. A Honda City buyer will shortlist Cedia petrol or Octavia petrol most probably, and hence should be compared to its rankings.

I have already mentioned this bit in FAQ on the first page - but let me try to explain in a different way. See, at the end of the day, we are trying to find whether a sedan is value for money or not. Fiat Palio 1.1 petrol @ Rs. 5 Lacs might be poor VFM, but a Skoda Superb @ Rs. 21 Lacs might be an excellent VFM product. Our rankings system highlights and reveals this fact. As you will agree, the cheapest car is not the best value for money.

Basically, among our 26 sedans, you can assume that the first nine cars offer the best VFM - more car per car (in Tata's parlance). The next nine cars offer average VFM - basically you get what you pay for. The last 8 cars offer poor VFM - you are not getting what you are paying for.

Caveat is that we are not considering subjective factors like ride & handling, build quality, interior quality etc etc. When we include these, the VFM rankings would be different - but that's something the buyer needs to analyze in his head.

Factors that are truly missed. Data on interior noise, data on headlight performance ( that can be included in safety ), data on handling. I dont know why, but it would be nice if we put in spare part prices as parameter in others section.

Yeah, I remember ACI used to give the noise levels in dB for each car. Regarding spare part prices, I guess they keep changing with inflation - so magazines can't keep track of it with accuracy. Headlight performance is not a big issue IMO, because they can be upgraded to 100/130 halogens for Rs. 2,000.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

One suggestion: In practicality, the Ground Clearance (GC) should to be added. I guess the data for GC should be available in ACI as they usually have this information in all car reviews.

Originally Posted by RajaTaurus

+1 to Dr. AD. while turning radius is considered aspracticality, GC could as well be considered here.

Aha, my favorite topic. I have intentionally left out GC although I have the data for all the cars. See, from my Optra experience, I know for a fact that whether you scrape the car or not depends more on front overhang than on ground clearance. Front overhang is the distance between the front bumper and the centre of the front wheel. Cars with longer front overhangs (like the Optra) will scrape the bumper even if it has high ground clearance. Optra's GC is 170 mm which is excellent, but you will scrape the front bumper on large humps or ditches.

Originally Posted by Vik0728

I just happened the see the time of this post and boy you really seem to be Smitten by this Analysis Bro. 1.30 AM !!

oh nothing really - I have always been a night owl. I have been switching off at 1:30 AM since the past 15 years now.

Originally Posted by benzinblut

Very nice analysis smartcat. I too am a fan of such analysis and love to put down comparisons on paper and scale them. Very well done

Thank you. But aren't you feeling sad about your car's close cousin Optra 1.6 petrol's performance? They should have stuck with the 1.8 petrol.

Originally Posted by RaguHolla

Can some one tell me what should be minimum headroom for 5' 7"? A kind of guideline or chart w.r.t person height vs Legroom, Headroom will be gr8..

If you are 5'7", I think headroom won't be an issue for you in 95% of the cars - unless you have extra long hair

Originally Posted by ACM

TATA has introduced a new variant of Indigo CS - BS4 version, for petrol and Diesel both. - Though you would not have all the feature details, you could consider the ones on the site itself. -

Roger that.

When we take just the rear leg room into consideration the extent to which the front seat goes ahead or backword becomes a factor, but it means nothing as we need to leave a uniform amount of space in the front before getting down to rear leg room. - For future only.

It would have been flawed if I had considered only the max legroom. But I'm considering minimum legroom too - so even if the front seat is pulled all the way back, we know how much room is left at the back. And I'm assigning equal weightage to max/min legroom.

Anyway, we do have data on front max/min legroom too - so I can incorporate that to improve accuracy. And yes, Manza is losing out a bit on practicality to Honda City because Honda City has a larger boot space & the highest headroom. Honda has somehow managed to pack in 500+ litres of boot space in the City.

[vasoo]

Originally Posted by smartcat

...


Aha, my favorite topic. I have intentionally left out GC although I have the data for all the cars. See, from my Optra experience, I know for a fact that whether you scrape the car or not depends more on front overhang than on ground clearance. Front overhang is the distance between the front bumper and the centre of the front wheel. Cars with longer front overhangs (like the Optra) will scrape the bumper even if it has high ground clearance. Optra's GC is 170 mm which is excellent, but you will scrape the front bumper on large humps or ditches.
...

In fact, the actual GC measurement doesn't really matter at all in real life. The scraping issue is dependent upon many other factors such as suspension setup, point of measuring GC, wheelbase, front and back overhangs etc. Even Civic has 170 mm GC, but it still scrapes bottom on large humps and scraped the front bumper on curbs and uneven roads.

[benzinblut]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Will try to do that!

Thank you. But aren't you feeling sad about your car's close cousin Optra 1.6 petrol's performance? They should have stuck with the 1.8 petrol.

You bet! It would have scored better in performance. It also had some additional features too (Multi funcitons steering, sunroof, etc) that GM has stingily cut on the current optra models

Originally Posted by vasoo

In fact, the actual GC measurement doesn't really matter at all in real life. The scraping issue is dependent upon many other factors such as suspension setup, point of measuring GC, wheelbase, front and back overhangs etc. Even Civic has 170 mm GC, but it still scrapes bottom on large humps and scraped the front bumper on curbs and uneven roads.

Absolutely, the civics soft suspensions are to be blamed for that. You will have to slow down a lot to avoid scraping your bottom

[ACM]

Smartcat

Say total Leg room in a car is = 225cm (Front + Back)

Now assume leg room is split as 100 front min + 125 rear max or 125 front max + 100 rear min in one case (1)

In another case (2) lets split the leg room as 90 front min + 135 rear max or 125 front max + 100 rear min - Just because of an extra 10 cm variation allowed in the front seat adjustment in case (2)

now it would appear that in case (2) the car has more leg room as the rear adjustment value would be 135max/100min whereas in case (1) the values would be 125max/100min. Thus the car in case (2) would seem to be having better legroom whereas actually the total leg room is identical and the amount of adjustment the front seat allows is of no use as one never uses the extreme adjustment positions in general.

Hence total of front and rear leg room values are the ONLY indicator of actual leg room rather than max and min values that all car manufacturers provide. - unless one is being driven in the rear seat by a small sized driver and one is always travelling seated on the passenger side rear seat rather than the driver side rear seat.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by vasoo

The scraping issue is dependent upon many other factors such as suspension setup, point of measuring GC, wheelbase, front and back overhangs etc. Even Civic has 170 mm GC, but it still scrapes bottom on large humps and scraped the front bumper on curbs and uneven roads.

Originally Posted by benzinblut

Absolutely, the civics soft suspensions are to be blamed for that. You will have to slow down a lot to avoid scraping your bottom

Civic actually doesn't have a very large front overhang either, but still goes krrrrrrrrunccchhhh!

Originally Posted by ACM

Hence total of front and rear leg room values are the ONLY indicator of actual leg room rather than max and min values that all car manufacturers provide.

Logical logic! Makes sense, yes.

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Civic actually doesn't have a very large front overhang either, but still goes krrrrrrrrunccchhhh!

Deadly combination of long wheelbase and soft rear supension.

[JackTheCrack]

Just another point of view - shouldn't many of these parameter be rated on range basis. For example how much difference does it make to have a seat width of 131.5 cm as compare to 132 cm but they sometime make a huge difference in assigned rating. If we assign the rating on range basis say same rating for all cars with seat width from 130 to 133 cm. This will basically eliminate the noise factor (differences just for the heck of it) and give some real value comparisons.
Just a thought... may be we reach a better comparison.

[SmartCat]

The problem is in deciding the range you are talking about (130 to 133 cm, for example). But who's to decide what range is enough? Wouldn't it be unfair to the car with 133.2 cm seat width? That's why we let the descending order/ascending order ranking system take care of assigning points.

But our in-house numbers expert - Dr. AD's normalized ranking system will take care your concern.

[SANairBlr]

Hello SmartCat, Many thanks for this analysis.

It is nice to see the "shark of cars" (Cedia) on top. I have great trust in Mitsubishi cars, and I think Cedia is best car by many means (including VFM) in the current range of products available for us.

I'm not a big fan of 0-100/30-80 tests. Because these are not done under practical travelling conditions.

In a practical condition every car on the highway speeds to 100 - but only between 25 to 30 seconds. That means - all cars in your list will do the job!.

Eventhough a car can reach 100 faster, it becomes uncomfortable for the travellers if it get to that speed too fast - so generally this not excercised as you would agree.

Meanwhile I agree completely the figures above are indicating power and torque of the car so analysis is completely right.

One note : The last in your list Mitsubishi Lancer Diesel, as per specs reaches 100 in 17+ secs, but in the practical world where every one reaches 100 at 25-30 secs these diesel cars (such as accent crdi...) will be winner. Because the drivers 'really' floor the pedals. :-)

I'm saying the above because I know people in those cars who are unbeatable Highway drivers. :-) . As finally it is all up to the 'man behind the wheel'! :-)

I would give more weightage - in the order of priority to 1) safety 2) zero-defect, 3) handling, 4) driving ergonomics 5) ride quality, 6) travelling luxury & suspension, 7) mileage and 8) some other practicality related matters (such as for instance ground clearance)

Some time in the past I thought of doing a analysis with the above factors but then I realised it is too difficult. However I have done some amount of analysis and I think Cedia is still the best!

Do you agree to at least some parts of my argument?

Thanks again,
-SA

[throttleking]

Smartcat how come you missed Optra Magnum Diesel?

[StarVegabond]

Originally Posted by SANairBlr

Eventhough a car can reach 100 faster, it becomes uncomfortable for the travellers if it get to that speed too fast - so generally this not excercised as you would agree.

a well engineered car will not make the passengers uncomfortable during such acceleration. in case it does, it means only one thing the engineering is not good.