24th December 2010, 10:00 | #46 |
BHPian Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Delhi
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev First heads up on FE: Driven 460km from an empty cylinder to not yet empty (still showing 1 green LED). Total gas filled to date 19.64kg. Giving an average of 23.42 km per kg, translating into a running cost of Rs.1.18 per km. I am overwhelmed, this exceeds expectation.. Will it get even better or have I goofed up somewhere! |
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The following BHPian Thanks LithiumSunset for this useful post: | mmmjgm |
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24th December 2010, 10:27 | #47 |
Distinguished - BHPian | Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Lithum Sunset Nice way to tell a story, congratulation on your new car. SX4 is a nice car, and I do agree the City is over priced compared to the SX4 though a better car it's not VFM, so SX4 does make more sense but somehow not to the Indian public. Also it is known to all that Diesels make more sense value wise at kms beyond 18K per month. But some factors you don't seem to have considered for a Diesel are: a) It invariably gives a higher effeciency figure as well (min 20%) and it is not just about the cost of diesel vs Petrol as a fuel. b) Diesels will have a better resale - though that is not a parameter you considered as important, this extra money that you pay upfront gets returned when you sell, so is nullified almost to the extent of 75% through this itself. (say you pay 1L extra upfront you get about 75k extra when you sell compared to a petrol.) c) Diesel have a higher torgue figure and that is really useful in city driving and while overtaking. Also this torque makes diesels more fun to drive in the sub 150 bhp categories. d) The ingear times that you have ignored cannot actually be ignored and they matter while driving and actually a lot more than 0-100 times. The deft shift work that you planned on does not materialize and leaves one more tired. f) Lastly you have presumed/mentioned that a diesel with 25K kms per year would not last 5 years, well infact diesel have to endure higher pressure and stress and hence the blocks are made tougher and they actually easily last 250,000 kms (10 years) today and the point you mentioned pertained to previous generation diesel from about 15 years back. Today diesel last as long as petrols if not more. That said a green SX4 is a good car and it offers better ground clearance, lower maruti maintenance and better visibility that the competetion and that itself makes it a good buy. Last edited by ACM : 24th December 2010 at 10:32. |
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24th December 2010, 11:12 | #48 |
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Congrats LithiumSunset on your new purchase ! It is a wise and balanced decision within your budgets. Drive safe. Few questions: Is the CNG kit a sequential one or traditional with lambda, timer etc. ? How much additonal cost for CNG in SX4? Tarun |
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24th December 2010, 11:14 | #49 |
BHPian Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Mumbai
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Congratulations Lithium Sunset. You heard a li'l bit of both head and heart. SX4 is a car I look up to. It seems to check most criteria boxes for me. I feel that CNG makes most sense for people who travel daily mostly to and from their office. Before I took the plunge for the CNG Alto, I had considered many diesel options - one of them being in-house with nil acquisition costs. Used it for a while too. One fine day, felt about getting some numbers for my daily commute. Surprisingly, found that for having another primary car (read major and regular office use) - a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) car with economical fuel and a secondary car (pre-existing diesel car) with a much lesser run, I could effectively have 2 vehicles in the same fuel budget as before. Plus there are talks about freeing the prices of Diesel from the control of the government in the news. In my view, it is inevitable and bound to happen in about 2-3 years time. At that moment, the premium that is paid towards the cost of a diesel car might come down substantially! Based on my running, I fill in CNG after about 3-4 days. With a range of about 150-180 kms per cylinder of CNG, I am happy I made the switch. Initial stages of ownership with frequent CNG station visits felt cumbersome though. These worries took a back seat once I started realizing two other valid pointers - environment and pocket friendly |
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24th December 2010, 12:15 | #50 | |
BHPian | Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
I own cars that run on both fuels. Our diesel cars, on average, cost us 30% more to fuelthan our CNG cars. And while they do enjoy a slightly better resale value, there's no denying the additional maintainance they require. A modern Common Rail powerplant has very expensive injectors, glowplugs etc. and these cost alot more money to replace than their predecessors. A CNG car like the SX4 Green, by comparison, actually costs less to maintain than the petrol due to the reduced wear on the engine mechanicals and lubricants. The SX4 Green is the first car that can completely upstage a modern diesel when it comes to Urban use. And that's no easy feat! | |
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24th December 2010, 12:22 | #51 | |
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev hey lithiumsunset fabulous writeup, it has got me thinking about this version now. have you checked FE in the petrol at all? perhaps there is an impact on it due to the weight of the CNG kit? of course, one would not drive on petrol with a full CNG tank, so maybe you should try this on an empty CNG tank and share the numbers. Quote:
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24th December 2010, 14:38 | #52 |
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev congratulations. the mileage is awesome, but do you really have to fill up every week? any safety precautions you need to take while filling up. the CNG gas is highly pressurized i hear. |
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24th December 2010, 16:35 | #53 | |
Distinguished - BHPian | Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
Yes the SX4 Green is a great vehicle and if and when the Diesel variant of the same comes the sales for SX4 would simply shoot up, but does Suzuki have an engine that can fit the bill? In most cars today where there are Diesel and Petrol variants both the diesel is the one that is selling better though it is more expensive. Diesels are today not sold just for the economy of diesel fuel but also for the performance and thrill it delivers. Agreed on the interest bit, but then I did also mention that the usage should be 18k plus per year, plus the other benifits. | |
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24th December 2010, 19:03 | #54 | |||
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
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Thanks getsriram, you must have seen the pics by now.. I am going to post a few more of the gas filling soon. | |||
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24th December 2010, 20:17 | #55 | |
BHPian | Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
I can only imagine that the quality of the CNG components will improve after careful testing of MUL's QC team. The reason CNG cars are also called duel fuel vehicles is because you can flip over to Petrol anytime additional performance is required. | |
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25th December 2010, 00:22 | #56 | |
BHPian | Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
Maruti's product here is very well rounded. It's an awesome buy, especially considering the December discounts.. | |
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25th December 2010, 01:30 | #57 |
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev @LithiumSunset congratulations!! frankly i never read any of those looong reviews full ever. but this one 've read every word of it. i enjoyed it and it also has a lot of logic/common sense in it. keep it up. i would be looking forward to your ownership reviews |
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25th December 2010, 10:11 | #58 | |
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
So 478.6 km / 19.64kg is 24.37 kmpkg, all in city driving. This is with a little bit of help from the yet unaccounted for petrol. What I plan to do is to take the petrol down to empty, while using the gas, this way one can calculate the total cost per km, but looking at the way that petrol gauge remains deliciously full (it has dipped by a notch now), that day seems a little far away! | |
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25th December 2010, 20:20 | #59 | ||||||
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
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25th December 2010, 22:03 | #60 | |||||
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| Re: I bought a car that no one is buying!(at least on Team BHP) SX4 Green Initial rev Quote:
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No idea about an OEM CNG cars resale value, but my guess is that it should depreciate normally, though aftermarket fitted cars do get lesser value. Quote:
I will certainly try the petrol FE, once. But honestly its hard to ignore the empty gas cylinder warning! As mentioned above, I have to fill up every 3-4 days, but that is because the vends do not have adequate pressure, ever. There are no safety concerns, I am told, other than to watch for any leaks, though how one gets to know the leak, I am not aware of. However CNG being lighter than air does not pose the same hazard as LPG. Passengers are asked to alight from the car and move away at the vend at the time of the filling. | |||||
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