Hi all. I have booked a Creta Nline N8 manual in Abyss Black. Below is the pricelist. I am taking insurance from outside (Royal Sundaram). Among the essential pack items , I plan only to take 3D mats, boot mat and rain visor. What are the other things I can do without? Suggestions please.
Never been a fan of accessories. Basic ones like the floor and boot mat should be OK. Try to get 3d mats if you can.
Quick question - I'm planning to book the n8 dct version soon. What sort of discounts are applicable? What was your on road price? Does the dealer allow insurance to be taken from outside? I want to transfer my existing 50% NCB to the new car if the dealer allows me to get insurance on my own...
No Nline manual here either, only DCT. I have test driven normal manual creta and I think I have a decent idea about how the Nline will behave. Online videos mention that ride quality and handling for the nline and normal are quite similar. I am expecting that the ride will be slightly firmer which will make handling more confident. Of course, the acceleration will be quite different. Different videos say 0-100 speeds of 12-13 secs, I already drive the Ford aspire with 0-100 kmph of less than 10 secs and the normal Creta petrol i have tested (which is no slouch for a city ride) , so I am aligning my expectations according to these.
Sold Nexon EV, Got the Creta N-Line, Drove it to Agumbe!
It's going to be a long one, settle in for some mediocre storytelling :)
Backstory - The Nexon EV!
Back in 2022, I owned a flame orange Verna SX(O), first car I bought in 2019. Loved it to the bits and it always got heads to turn around! But had an itch to try the EVs and took a couple of test drives of the Nexon, late 2021 and early 2022 - infact Prerana Motors let me keep one for the weekend to try it out. It was enthralling to drive one and I was sold, but kept the thought on the backburner for a bit. Then came the MG ZS EV facelift and the thought came back. Went for the test drive on a Saturday at their flagship Lavelle road showroom and the experience was abysmal to say the least, they didn't have the car avaialble that day and promised to send the car home next week and never did, even after a follow up. Gave up the idea with the prices for the most part.
On the other hand, one of the Tata dealers sent the dark edition Nexon EV and I booked one. a month later, the Max got launched and I moved my booking to Max. KHT messed up the entire thing royally (which I have mentioned in another thread), but that pushed my acquisition by 4-5 months. Wasn't fun and when I did get the car, it wasn't in the colour we initially booked (due to their miscommunication and my haste, they offered me a car "early" but in grey). I did the PDI and took the car, but it wasn't what my heart wanted.
Frankly, the car served us well, until we met with a pillar in our basement. That set off a months long repair process delayed first by insurance, then by service center. The car came back, as good as new, but in my heart, I found myself not being able to get the same feeling - not for the fault of the car - but just in my heart, I knew it wasn't what I wanted! I tried to jazz it up to refresh my outlook towards it - got a matte PPF and covered the roof and blue accents in black - and it did look smashing!
The search for a replacement and finalizing the N-Line
With the decision made to let go off the Nexon, I started looking for options, with hugely undermining the resale market for the EVs. Tempted by the slowdown in the auto space and mouth watering discounts around August - I started with some test drives. I knew I wanted a pseudo-SUV only, given Bangalore's crater-esque roads, mountainous speed breakers, increasing water logging issues.
1. Kushaq/Taigun - Never been a fan of Taigun's design, so went for the Kushaq's test drive at the Tafe in JP Nagar. Uninterested SA, combined with a product whose interior didn't feel like it belonged in the >20L range, insane amount of road noise making it to the cabin, and lack of front parking sensors (which I was told were not available even as option) or a 360 camera, I decided to skip the car. I was definitely looking for feature upgrade from the Nexon because it was a downgrade in some ways/at par with my 6 yr old Verna.
2. Vitara/Hyryder - Logical option to move away from an EV, but one ride in the Vitara and I couldn't get myself to like the aging interior, with cross sharing of parts with models 1/3rd the price. Add to that, lack of power on the highway, it jsut didn't have what I wanted. Hyryder got out with the high headedness of Toyota dealers.
3. Seltos/Creta - Wasn't a fan of Creta's light interior and therefore decided to checkout Seltos - liked the drive, liked the features on offer and decided to book the GTX+. Have to mention, I absolutely hated the seat upholstery on GTX variants - it looked absolute aftermarket that all the Dzire cabs in the country end up getting.
I decided not to touch Tata to tempt my luck again with their service history, unbothered dealers, poor quality and reliability. And EVs were out of question in the price range - ZS was aging (still visited the MG showroom in JPN and they still couldn't be bothered to get excited about a potential sale), new BYD Atto 3 model at 25L was exciting but the lower range wouldn't solve my itch for road trips - plus I was already seeing the effect of accelerated depreciation in EVs - didn't want to add a new brand to the unfavourable equation.
Booked the Seltos with around 1.2L off in discounts, thinking I'd get a decent price from the market on Nexon, but that didn't really happen and had to cancel the booking - meanwhile, the home minister also mentioned she wasn't a fan of the car's looks :Shockked:. And thus Seltos was out, OLX games to sell the Nexon started, and we were back to thinking what next.
A fine September morning, got a kind buyer who was open to buying the car with the knowledge of the entire history and after doing his diligence, picked up the car in early October.
The things moved quite fast and we were out of our only car and with no options. I meanwhile was eyeing the Creta N-Line as we had checked out once when we were around a Hyundai showroom - loved the looks of the car, better than the usual Creta and fell in love with the 18-inch alloys and the all black interior with not overdone red accents.
Went on to schedule a couple of test drives. The Pavan Hyundai folks were kind enough to give us a couple of test drives, came home for one as well and let us take one as long as we wanted to. I liked the handling of the car, the ease of driving it and the predictability of its reaction to my inputs, was missing the instant torque of EV, but slot it into sport and it had more power than I was prepared to handle. Home ministed liked the comfort at the back, panaromic roof was a hit, Bose sound system was okay, and the screens were pretty crisp and good looking in all black.
I called them up first for a quote for the N-line N10 DCT and they offered me a price with 45k discount with everything included to the brim. I also got a quote from Trident Hyundai, another SA who had come for a test drive earlier (also because Verna was from Tident too). They gave an initial offer lower than Pavan hyundai by a few thousands. I went back to both with my final price and some accessories excluded - Pavan didn't move, Trident met me halfway. I had plans to remove some of their service offerings and reducing EW to get to my comfortable price, but it worked out without any removals.
Booked the car with Trident on a thursday, 10th Oct, loan docs on Friday, PDI on Monday, Disbursal and Reg. on Tuesday, Delivery on Thursday. The car was Sep mfg., PDI was flawless and Trident arranged the drive to Stockyard an hour away and got the car ready when we arrived. I approved the loan post PDI and chose my number of choice for registration and paid 25K for it. The entire process was made so simple and ably assisted by Sangeetha at Trident Electronic City, it was a breeze.
I took only mud-flaps, car cover, idol as my accessories. Had opted for 3D Mats, but they didn't have the N-line ones, the usual ones I didn't like and opted to take them from outside (got the GFX ones including the bootmat and super happy)
It went to the temple same day evening and after the customary Pooja, I got to learning the amazing machine it was. Definitely a looker, slightly distinct from all the Cretas on the road. Got the PPF done, so that I can be slightly less anxious on the road everyday. The only thing I would do differently is to get the DT. The spoiler in black makes the design/color line off on the C pillar. will probably get a small sticker/wrap to fix it after an year or so.
Some things that are a miss/not happy with:
1. Terrible wipers - Hyundai really need to fix this
2. Headlight Performance in the dark - This is quite bad, I don't know if it is the placement problem or if it is the throw that's bad
3. No wireless AA/CP - this shouldn't have been the case considering a 2 yr old mid variant Sonet got it.
4. Rides a bit stiff due to 18inchers and the supposed sportier suspension setup
Drive to Agumbe
I was itching to take it out on a long drive (something I missed for better part of last 12 months, with Nexon being in repair first, and then locations in reach being ruled out due to lack of reliable charging infra).
Diwali right after the delivery meant we were away from Bangalore for a good 10-15 days and I can't explain how badly I wanted to come back this time, just to drive the car again.
Once we were all back, over the weekend, going through @graaja's post about him taking his Fortuner to Agumbe, inspired me to do the same. Ended up booking Crepe Ginger and headed to Agumbe on 15th Nov for the weekend and ended up making the same mistake as him of not putting a couple of waypoints which meant going through some of the worst/non-existent roads.
The car was quite compliant on the highway through hassan. It was planted, steering weighed quite well. I had some initial issues in figuring out the cruise system that combined with the ADAS, but eventually all worked out. The body roll is very contained and the ride very comfortable. However, the bad roads, one could feel and therefore couldn't get myself to go through them at speed (also, new car syndrome).
I could do 18kmpl on the highway at sub 100 speeds, overall with around 160 kms of ghat, 40-50kms of bad roads, rest being highways, we could do an avg of 14.5kmpl for the trip.
We had an expected wonderful stay at Crepe Ginger. Had the place to ourselves on Day 1 and it was amazing exploring the property, the stream besides it and the company of the house dogs - whiskey, soda and jerry. The food was just amazing during all the meals. Our 3 year old enjoyed the company of the dogs and the amazing food along with all the place to run around. Very happy with the choice and thanful for the timely post by @graaja.
Some parting shots of the journey, and the place for your visual delight.
At Kavi-shyla
Some shots at Crepe Ginger
Whiskey says bye!
Cheers!
Brought home my Black Panther Creta NLine N8 MT. :)
Had to let go of my trusty old Ford Aspire.:crying
N8 comes with front Dash Cam. However I couldnt download the app to access the cam as it shows the message that the app is only available for older version of Android (see screenshot )..even showroom people are clueless about it. My phone is running on Android 14. So I haven't been able to activate my cam. Anyone else face this problem?
And few photos of my Black Panther
