[absynthguzzler]

Seems like someone is busy waxing and polishing already !!

I thought by now we'd have the pooja and keys handover snaps at the very least

[mobike008]

Calling yesterday's activities as hectic would be an understatement !!!!!

Viva related work combined with office work, car delivery, pooja and late night office calls. All crammed into one single day. I am not used to so much work in a single day.

A few pictures of pooja performed by our regular pujari after getting the beast at home.

Will share the pictures taken at showroom later on as its in Milecruncher's new toy

[Repsol]

Congrats on your new purchase. While getting accessories, you should definitely go for fog lamps. It will add-on to the looks of your cruzy !!

[vnabhi]

Looks fabulous----gotta see it in flesh and blood though. Congrats!!

[DRIV3R]

Congrats Mobike008! Cruze is a lovely car. BTW are those integrated blinkers on the ORVMs?

[kenpachigamer]

Great car man, congrats for the buy. Its on my wishlist .
Agree with repsol, go for the foglamps

[Rajesh Rawal]

Solid! we want the pic of the proud owner standing next to the car as well

if you want a pic of the cleaner guy ,call me to pose

[traveloholic]

Avi, when should I do the photoshoot of your new toy using Ani's New Toy

Congrats again & Enjoy CRUZIN' around

[zen91]

Abv Bhai, Congrats on purchasing the "Diesel Rocket"

We were like discussing on the options about a month an a half back and here we have you with the vehicle itself..this one was really fast.

Here's wishing you a lot of FAST miles in the future..by the way Party kab hai??

[hillram]

Avi..Hearty Congratultions on the aqusition of the CRUZE.I know how much you pondered and deliberated on your next car and now this proud ownership.Its a new milestone in your life.Happy Motoring !!!

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by Rajesh Rawal

if you want a pic of the cleaner guy ,call me to pose

I think Avi has already employed a car-cleaner

[ashish22]

Congrats Avinash, so you have realized your dream!!! and that too little earlier then expected! This shows how much you wanted this car and i'm sure you must be loving every moment of possessing this beauty.
Wishing you and your car miles and miles of driving pleasure, safety, reliability and long term joy. Oh and welcome to the growing Cruze club :-)
When does the accessories/add ons stage start??

[Manvik]

Congratulations Avi...still continuing with your trend of upgrading machines gradually, i remember you talking about your next car during our trip Warangal and tentatively Dussera time, looks like the white beast took you over.

[mobike008]

Those casual discussions took a slightly serious note and I began scouting for pre-owned cars and visited a few dealerships and checked out Octavia’s, Laura’s and Civics

Either the price was too high or the odometer mileage was difficult to come to terms with. And, the fact that I never owned a “pre-owned” car ever made it even more difficult. And, this will be my 6th brand new car in 8 years timeframe. So you can imagine the amount of money splurged on buying, owning and selling them away over this period.

Skoda’s had terribly high mileage 70K kms +. I know, I know its not high but, for someone who never owned pre-owned they definetly seemed high to me.

Civics were in 30K-40K range but, asking price was not agreeing with my pockets that had a mind of its own.

Finally, this mind related tangle about pre-owned and new got unscrambled when I convinced my mind that heart is going through a lot of stress and needs a stress buster to calm it down.

In other words, I told my mind to go to hell !

Now with clarity set in that it will be a brand new car and my budget was a maximum of 11L-11.5L OTR Hyderabad. Only cars considered were :-

ANHC: I drove a friend’s car. It is smooth got beautiful interiors but, the engine didn’t have the kick that I used to get from my Pete’d viva

Verna: I bought so many Hyundai’s (actually 3 cars in < 4 years) in the recent past. I was firm not to buy one. Considered it a wee bit and immediately discarded as I will continue to be in same segment.

Octavia: Read so many reviews on tbhp and was praised for its reliability (better than Laura) and liked its tank like built and looks. But, even for a Skoda crazy city like Hyderabad, they aren’t selling these days. IIRC, they sold 0 numbers in June across the country.

Then decided to climb a single step :-

Civic: This car created awe in me ever since it was launched like it did for most car enthusiasts. I love the way it drives and no doubt has got the best interiors in that class. Soft suspension was a major downside and other being the super exorbitant price. Rs.15.5+ Lakhs for a V in Hyderabad and that too for petrol for my daily running of 60kms+. No way!

Laura: This one was what most of my dreams were made of about my "next car". I was almost obssessed with it's clean broad shoulder design and absolutely loved its road presence. But, pricing was the only deterrent as base model starts from 15L and top end now costs close to 19L. I just couldn’t afford one.

Cruze

Finally, the advertisements of “Diesel Rocket” and a major conversation at Nagarjunsagar TBHP meet lured me to their showroom.

Before taking a test drive I checked their pricing and was immediately disappointed as the price that I was expecting was history. Increase in road tax from 9% to 14% plus the regular increase ensured this car was well beyond my reach.

Nonetheless, I enquired for a test drive and they brought an Automatic for test-drive. One drive was enough to convince me that this was my next car. But, that meant overshooting my budget by a large margin.

After that drive, took 3 more test drives with a manual version in peak traffic conditions to open roads. I never felt the spring back action force of the clutch as it was described probably because I was used to a diesel car or maybe drove the car with a pre-conceived notion about this aspect.

Infact, the clutch is quite smooth and pleasure to use. Except for an “irritant” which in technical terms is called “turbo-lag” which is pretty evident till 1200k RPM, I was sold on Cruze. I kept telling my mind :-

stay above 1200k rpm, stay above 1200k rpm.

I started considering the LT version and was in dilemma whether it made sense. First hearting thing to know was the engine and safety features are identical.

I PM’d quite a few Cruze owners on TBHP and thanks to Ashish22 and NP23 who patiently answered my queries and helped me decide on this car.

Actually, the exact moment when I decided that I will go ahead with LT version was when Ashish22 used following words in a PM to me :-

<< Quote>>
By buying an LT you will be able to completely full fill whatever you desire from your next car and the extra features which LTZ offers become passive anyways after the due course of usage of the car.

These features only delight for first few days. At the end of the day it is the car and its characteristics which matters and not the car’s features.

Its only when you compare LT with LTZ, its looks slightly short of features but LT in its own terms has got good amount of decent features to stand against the competition.

<< Un-Quote>>

Thanks Ashish!

From the time a seed sown into mind to buying the car was approximately 1.5 months which happens to be the fastest-time for me to decide on a new car.

[IronWolf]

Lovely post. Many of us were waiting for this.

Such joy and passion in buying a car only on Team-bhp.

The features and lil toys of any top end version mean nothing, when you are seated behind the wheel of a driver's car. Excellent choice.

Now you can use that extra pisa for the toys you personally require in there.

Awaiting an early ownership report