Quote:
Originally Posted by krishnakumar Congrats on your new car!! ![Smile](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png) Hope you have a great many years with it!
====[*] Did you get any discount? Did you take the insurance through the dealer or from outside? Any handling charges?[/list] |
Hello sir,
I'll try to answer the questions as nicely as possible. Here goes!
1. Yes, this shall be our first car. My father had a Santro and now he drives a Chevvy Beat.
2. The criteria were safety, comfort and ground clearance. Turbocharger would be an advantage. And the maximum on road price ₹9,00,000. Nexon satisfied these criteria. Since we were not looking for automatic or one with sunroof and such, the XM model was fine. Sure, it misses out on the infotainment system, rear washer and defogger, fog lights, rear camera, adjustable seat height, rear adjustable headrests, arm rests, cooled glovebox, automatic climate control, cruise control, etc. ; we weighed it against "do we really need these? " and these features did not justify going above our budget. So, Nexon XM it was.
3. Nexon was not the first car of choice. It was the Ford Freestyle Titanium +. That ticked all the boxes, was in the price range and Ford's after sales services are said to be quite good.
We were a week away from booking the car, when the rumour that Ford may leave the country soon came up. That convinced my wife to go (very strongly) Vocal for local. So, the search began again.
Altroz was an option, but unless the iTurbo engine is opted, it is not very powerful. Also, none of the cars had Traction Control and ESP, which were available in Freestyle. The Hyundai-Kia group was ignored because of lack of steering feedback. Maruti ignored because of safety ratings (lack of). Renault - Nissan was not considered since they do not have an extensive service chain across the country. VW Polo was considered and seriously loved. But then, Nexon simply is a bigger car.
4. I would not be having a lot of daily driving, hence did not consider Diesel. The price of fuel has almost become similar and the difference is offset by the service charges. This was my rationale for choosing the Petrol variant.
5. Sales experience was quite nice. The SE was enthusiastic about the car, the test drive and about the after sales experience. She was forthcoming about the issues faced with the sunroof and the fact that even though TATA has improved a lot, there are still miles to go.
We took two test drives. About 10-15 kms each. Around an hour total, city plus highway. The SE took us to the stock yard to get a better idea of the colour options first hand since we were a little confused between the Daytona Grey and Foliage Green colour.
6. For discounts, we had gone in with quotes from policybazaar about the insurance. So, from a quoted price of about ₹47k, it came down to ₹27k. This included the engine cover, zero dep, consumables and key replacement.
We took the insurance from the dealer itself, he mentioned about some all India tie ups, have to check with the actual insurance documents though. Also, we did not take the extended warranty immediately, nor the accessories pack. All of this brought down the price considerably. Then negotiated to have the mudflaps and floor mats being put, without any extra cost to us. The quoted price of RTO was also about ₹6k more than actual. Pointed it out, got that reduced too.
A realization here, when going in to negotiate the price, if we have the data printed out or even in an excel sheet on the phone, which we can point and refer to against them doing the same to their quotations, they get much agreeable to the prices we want. From the next year, I'll probably renew the insurance on my own rather than going via the dealer. No handling charges.
It has been a very long post of replies, but I hope I was able to do justice to the questions and be of help. Please do let me know if there are more questions with which I may be able to help.