[alstonlobo]

Originally Posted by informmaha

Yeah me too cleaned the AC filter just recently, but not like what you have done though, I just dusted it. Its parked under a tree all the time and when i opened it, there were full of leaves inside

Is it recommended to do a clean like what you have done? I am pretty sure that this will be the effective cleaning that would be possible if done so..

the cleaning what I have done is pretty effective but you need to ensure that the filter is rinsed with liberal amounts of water as detergent residue tends to stick behind if not washed properly. And detergent tends to also leave a stink if the fabric is not dried properly or is subjected to continous moisture.

I used at least a spoonful of surf excel blue and it helped drain out all the dirt. I had to do this thrice because everytime I rinsed, the water used to be filled black with dirt.

Ideally use diluted vinegar on the AC filter to kill bacteria and for fresher smell, I read this online.

There is also a special cleaning liquid for air filters (lookup for these online) and water or petrol is not the best solution IMO.

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by informmaha

I got mine from Sundaram Motors and i know how they treat customers. Better to opt for KLN...
...Initially they told that the insurance cost is 13000 odd and i told that i could get it for 9200, and insisted why should i get it from them, then they immediately gave me 30% discount and paid insurance of 9400 or 9500 (Bajaj Allianz). So as far as possible bargain. Try an online search for the motor insurance (eg. bajaj allianz) you can get an idea of how much the insurance would come up to.

Originally Posted by rsramkee

I got my Beat from Sundaram Motors last month. Get in touch with a person called Babu there. He is the team lead for Beat sales until 3 weeks back for sure. I will PM his number to you. Also tell them you will go to KLN. I had to do that when they goofed up my TD. The effect was immediate.

I got mine from Royal Sundaram. I wrote about that and the discounts/offers I got last month on my ownership experience.

Thanks informmaha & rsramkee for the valuable inputs, literally. First of all, today morning sharp at 9.30am, I got call from the sales representative, Mr. Ganesh. He apologised many times for the goofup in the TD and offered TD today only, which I declined because of my schedule. I finalized that for coming Saturday. Then I asked him to mail me the quote for the Beat 1.2LT Sanddrift Grey, on-road price with breakup. That he sent promptly within half an hour. (And yes, I did mentioned to him that I've to choose between two particular cars, one being Beat, and I'll make my mind after TDs and comparing the quotes/ offers. I thought this statement had right effect on him.)

I went through the quote which was : Rs. 427,271 (Ex-showroom) + Rs. 16,077 (Insurance) + Rs. 42,727 (Registration) + Rs. 6600 (Life Time Road Tax) + Rs. 1375 (Basic Accessories : Mud Flaps & Foot Mats). Corporate discount of Rs. 15,000 was also offered, totaling the on-road price of Rs. 479,050.

I got call from Mr. Ganesh, after lunch, to confirm whether I've received the quote. I asked him about other offers, and again mentioned that the offers will help me in making final decision, he offered Car Cover. I further inquired about Immobilizer with keyless entry (including model details), for that he requested time till tomorrow.

I was quite satisfied with the interaction and the promptness of the sales person till I reached home and logged onto Team-BHP. The information from you both gave me a shock : insurance for approx 8k-9k, 15k as regular discount and not corporate discount (rsramkee's ownership thread), additional corporate discount of 4k, further discount on keyless entry, free sunfilm, boot mat, mud flaps, floor mats, On-road price of Rs. 4.62L, a day light loot of more than Rs. 17k . Thank you once again guys for the valuable information, with this ammunition, I'm much better prepared to minimize the loot.

The way forward is, as mentioned many times on this forum, get quotes and TDs from multiple dealers, pit the quotes against each other. So, tomorrow KLN will get my call for TD on Sunday. Thanks rsramkee for the contact at Sundaram Motors. I'll PM you for some more details.

One help I seek from you, I am in Tambaram East, so which dealer is closer to me, Sundaram Motors, Anna Salai, Chennai - 600 006 or KLN Motors, Ekkaduthangal, Chennai - 600097 (I am new to the city). I tried Google maps, but could not locate these. Any major landmark nearby will help.

Also, is it Royal Sundaram or TVS Sundaram or simply Sundaram ??? I am confused !!!

[DRIV3R]

KLN is near Olympia tech park/Aricent/Virtusa.

[Daewood]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

I was quite satisfied with the interaction and the promptness of the sales person till I reached home and logged onto Team-BHP. The information from you both gave me a shock : insurance for approx 8k-9k,

All dealers charge 40% more on insurance as agent commision.
If you take policy online you can save this amount.
I too benefited from rsramkee's exprerience and took insurance on my own and saved 6k

Corporate discount of Rs. 15,000 was also offered.

This amount is actually the 3 years free maintenance offer. If you don't opt for the package they pass it on to you as discount.
Corporate discount is applicable only for listed companies and me being a private consultant didn't get any.

further discount on keyless entry, free sunfilm, boot mat, mud flaps, floor mats.

I got floor mats, mud flaps and car cover(instead of sunfilm)
If you bargain more they will give one more item i guess.
I didn't go for keyless entry as the model they have in stock is one without immobiliser.

Also, is it Royal Sundaram or TVS Sundaram or simply Sundaram ??? I am confused !!!

Royal Sundaram is the name of the insurance provider. It's just Sundaram motors. All belong to the same group of companies.

I got delivery of my BEAT yesterday from the same Sundaram motors. Everything was smooth except a small delay of 1 day due to the bank.
I would suggest Sundaram over KLN for one reason. When i took TD of the BEAT, Sundaram gave me 2 test drives. Once in a LT version and another time in a LS version. Both were test drive cars but when KLN gave me a TD it was a owner's car. That made me think these guys are better.

Originally Posted by DRIV3R

KLN is near Olympia tech park/Aricent/Virtusa.

One more KLN showroom is in Poonamalee Road near Sangam Cinemas.

[informmaha]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

I was quite satisfied with the interaction and the promptness of the sales person till I reached home and logged onto Team-BHP. The information from you both gave me a shock : insurance for approx 8k-9k, 15k as regular discount and not corporate discount (rsramkee's ownership thread), additional corporate discount of 4k, further discount on keyless entry, free sunfilm, boot mat, mud flaps, floor mats, On-road price of Rs. 4.62L, a day light loot of more than Rs. 17k . Thank you once again guys for the valuable information, with this ammunition, I'm much better prepared to minimize the loot.

The way forward is, as mentioned many times on this forum, get quotes and TDs from multiple dealers, pit the quotes against each other. So, tomorrow KLN will get my call for TD on Sunday. Thanks rsramkee for the contact at Sundaram Motors. I'll PM you for some more details.

One help I seek from you, I am in Tambaram East, so which dealer is closer to me, Sundaram Motors, Anna Salai, Chennai - 600 006 or KLN Motors, Ekkaduthangal, Chennai - 600097 (I am new to the city). I tried Google maps, but could not locate these. Any major landmark nearby will help.

Also, is it Royal Sundaram or TVS Sundaram or simply Sundaram ??? I am confused !!!

Well "Crying baby gets milk first" . So bargain as much as possible, you will definitely get whatever ramkee has got. By default they offer car cover when you ask for discounts, you can ask for something else for this if you are not going to use the cover. I checked with bajaj allianz online quote and it gave an option of Rs.10800 and Rs.11800 (could not research on what the difference is between both these, sorry about that). Royal sundaram gives much cheaper than Bajaj Allianz, but don't come to a conclusion on my word, please do check for a quote online.

Ofcourse KLN is closer to you, Sundaram Motors is another 6-7kms more from KLN, if you are coming from Tambaram. It's right next to Olympia Tech Park in Ekatuthangal, which is very much popular. It's on the right hand side when you come down from newly built guindy flyover. You can easily make out KLN over there. You can chekout google map from the link below.

Tambaram, Tamil Nadu, India to Olympia Technology Park - Google Maps

I think you got confused with Sundaram Motors and Royal Sundaram. TVS Sundaram Iyengar & Sons is the dealer name and Royal Sundaram is the insurance company from Sundaram Finance. Hope this clears.

[anu21v]

Hey guys, Looking for review on Beat Petrol with the much publicized its new Smart-tech engine. Can some one throw the performance and fuel efficiency numbers now. I guess its been about a month since the launch of engine and many a people on forum would have tested it. Looking for reviews from someone who has experienced the performance of earlier as well as this new engine,

[Mafia]

Originally Posted by anu21v

Hey guys, Looking for review on Beat Petrol with the much publicized its new Smart-tech engine. Can some one throw the performance and fuel efficiency numbers now. I guess its been about a month since the launch of engine and many a people on forum would have tested it. Looking for reviews from someone who has experienced the performance of earlier as well as this new engine,

+1 and also for the LPG version! it can be combi test drive or a comparision test!!

[Daewood]

Originally Posted by anu21v

Hey guys, Looking for review on Beat Petrol with the much publicized its new Smart-tech engine. Can some one throw the performance and fuel efficiency numbers now. I guess its been about a month since the launch of engine and many a people on forum would have tested it. Looking for reviews from someone who has experienced the performance of earlier as well as this new engine,

I don't think anything has changed, except that the engine is highly localised now. I have driven the old engine a couple of times, and it felt the same compared to the new one in my Beat. Will post FE numbers after i clock 500kms. For now you can see rsramkee's thread, which i guess is the first BEAT with the new engine on the forum.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ml#post2242361

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by Daewood

I don't think anything has changed, except that the engine is highly localised now.

AFAIK localization is done for cost reduction by procuring the locally made parts instead of importing CKDs or importing parts and then assembling locally. One important thing that should be mentioned here is that while localizing the parts, specifications and performance requirements for the parts are not changed. The cost reduction is achieved primarily because of savings on export-import duties and lower labour/ process/ overhead costs in the local market. In some cases, material and logistics costs also contribute to cost reduction. In fact, many of the world's major Auto parts suppliers like Bosch, Delphi, Lumax, Hayes-Lemmerz and many more have established their manufacturing setups in India (and with same quality standards) to take advantage of lower costs.

Now, if the sole aim of GM was localization, then they are not legally (or otherwise) bound to give a new version/market name to the same engine. They would have sold the old engine with localized parts and made higher margins. In this case also, the customers must not feel cheated by any means (unless engines start failing, blowing up etc. etc. ).

IMO there must be some significant technical changes (details of which are not yet completely known), that led them to give a new engine version. And with my experience, I can definitely say that no OEM in any domain wants to add up more versions to their portfolio just to show off. That results in lot of inventory, logistics, handling and after-market support complexities. OR GM played a plain gamble by exclusively marketing the engine as new to show that even they are making advancements in technology . At the time of Beat launch GM missed to market this aspect and most of the customers will understand this as some big leap and may run to get the "New Beat".

PS: Many BHPians on this forum have noticed that there is change in the max. power rating of new engine as compared to previous. Previous : 80.5Ps@6200 rpm ; New : 83.2Ps@6200rpm. The chevy webpage is also showing the new value.

I understand that this can be done by simply changing ECU mappings (like the same 2.2L DICOR engine goes in Safari 2.2L DICOR VTT and Sumo Grande 2.2L DICOR VTT, but in the former the ECU map is tuned for 140Ps@4000rpm & 320Nm@1700-2700rpm while the ECU map of latter is tuned for 120Ps@4000rpm & 250Nm@1500-3000rpm to improve fuel efficiency)

[anu21v]

Originally Posted by Daewood

I don't think anything has changed, except that the engine is highly localised now. I have driven the old engine a couple of times, and it felt the same compared to the new one in my Beat. Will post FE numbers after i clock 500kms. For now you can see rsramkee's thread, which i guess is the first BEAT with the new engine on the forum.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ml#post2242361

Thanks Daewood for directing to such a wonderful review of Beat's new Smarttech engine.

[Daewood]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

IMO there must be some significant technical changes (details of which are not yet completely known), that led them to give a new engine version. And with my experience, I can definitely say that no OEM in any domain wants to add up more versions to their portfolio just to show off. That results in lot of inventory, logistics, handling and after-market support complexities. OR GM played a plain gamble by exclusively marketing the engine as new to show that even they are making advancements in technology . At the time of Beat launch GM missed to market this aspect and most of the customers will understand this as some big leap and may run to get the "New Beat".

It's basically killing 2 birds with the same stone.
1. The change in manufacturing from Korea to India which might create a negative impact, because local means cheap to many Indians. Counter this by announcing a new name and project it as new Engine.
2. Any "New" is a trigger for more sales. Be it soaps, shampoos, softwares, etc, etc

Everybody does that..Drivetech 4, irde2, etc are some of the examples.
Except from some minor tweaks everything else will remain the same and that wouldn't lead to any significant complications in inventory, logistics, handling and after-market support.

[AutoNoob]

Yesterday I had the TD from Sundaram Motors. The overall experience was much to my liking except one goof-up.

I had given time of 3pm and got a reminder call at 11am. At sharp 3pm the TD car was outside my home, with stickers "Test it like you own it", and I definitely did that. The sales person and the driver greeted me with smile, "quite professional" I thought. But the moment I looked at the car, noticed something missing, the roof rails. They had brought 1.2LS (it had passenger side ORVM) even though I had clearly told them that I am looking for a 1.2LT and would like to have TD in the same variant.

Since the two doesn't differ in terms engine and tyres, I went ahead (even though I knew that it won't be having tilt steering, stock music system and climate control). Climbed down into the driver seat, ingress was comfortable. Adjusted the seat, adjusted the mirrors, strapped my self and found the steering column perfectly aligned for my driving position. Good. Cranked the engine, kept on idle, and it felt like engine is not running at all, till you look at the Tacho, absolutely silent. ODO was displaying 18k+ kms. Turned on the AC, twisted the knob for different fan speeds, it becomes quite noisy at 3&4 positions.

It was the time to drive, slotted in reverse and came out of the home lane. No rear visibility problems, ORVMs too are amply sized. We headed eastwards on the Velachery Main Road. The pickup in first gear was good, though the short clutch pedal travel had me stall the engine on a couple of times, no fault of car/ design (I am used to driving UVs and small trucks, and therefore tend to stall cars with shorter clutch travel), got used to that quickly. Low speed driveability of Beat in 2nd and 3rd gear is good for city traffic, no need to frequent down shifting if you are in 3rd gear. In Bumper to Bumper traffic, I feel the car will be good driving experience in 2nd gear too, couldn't try that as roads were almost empty at that time. The gear shift was not as slick as Marutis but I have no complaints compared to my past experiences. It was precise, though. The steering felt sufficiently weighted, lane changing at city speeds was effortless, there was sufficient road feedback and returnability was also good.

As I was getting into the stride, something happened. We were at around 40kmph and a small grit fell from the truck carrying loads of it. It hit the wind screen, I ignored that and continued. But then I felt some murmuring between the sales person and the driver. I stopped on side and noticed a star like crack just behind the IRVM . The sales person called back to his office, told them about the incident and requested me to carry on with the drive.

After the city driving experience, I wanted to floor the throttle, I knew exactly one place to do so, took U-turn and headed for the Chennai Bypass. While passing through the under-pass at the Tambaram railway crossing, felt the suspension doing its job as expected. Once on highway, asked both guys to check for their seat belts and gunned the car till 140kmph, engine never felt overstressed or noisy. Now it was time for the high speed trials (and I request all not repeat what I did, unless they are qualified to do so or have sufficient driving experience). I looked at the RVMs, waited for the sufficient empty patch behind me and I tried the to-fro single lane change maneuvers, the double lane change maneuvers at speeds of 80, 100 and 120 kmph. The steering response was excellent (something which is not a forte of HPS systems), body roll was controlled and it was a confident feeling behind the steering wheel. I hadn't expected this, given the height and narrower wheel base. The braking from 140-0, 100-0 and 60-0 was spot on, though I didn't had the instrumentation to measure the braking distance or time to stop. I was surprised, as there has been a lot of talk about the thin 155 section width tyres, the tyres never gave away. Yes, the car was not fully loaded, tarmac was dry and situation might have been different otherwise. Though hardly anyone test drives like this but at times this behaviour of car on highway, in situations where such evasive actions are required, can be the difference between safe escape and a dreadful accident.
Beat had ticked all the right boxes.

I took U-turn at the toll plaza and requested the driver to drive while I have the feel at rear seat. Sat behind the co-driver so that I could monitor the speedo and co-relate the observations with the speed. There was sufficient leg room; I observed the seat fabric closely, seemed good. The seat itself was more like short bench, with minimal thigh support. Heard some wind cutting noise, but by that time we were cruising again at 120+ kmph. The driver performed some lane changes and it was comfortable at the rear seat too. On the way back, crossed the railway under-pass once again and car rear felt well planted. Reached home, requested the sales person to slide the co-driver seat fully back, till 80% of the travel legroom was comfortable; checked the boot for the available space in real time, checked the tyre specs as well just to confirm (may be the guys at Sundaram Motors are following Team-BHP for tyre upgrade suggestions).

Came the time for feedback, I was given a feedback form. Mentioned all the observations and also the goof-up in the TD variant. I told that I am going to book the car in first or second week of March so send the updated quotes and discount details for the month of March on March 1st, as that will be required to make the 'final decision', which they agreed. Said thanks to the guys and went in the home 'satisfied' after 35 kms of drive.

[thedreamcatcher]

For one, I find the ORVM of the Beat to be very useful due to its size. I was one reversing into a tight spot next to a drain, and lowered the ORVM. Later I forgot to put it back up and when driving it did not even strike me that it was lowered. Thats the size and coverage it offers. Splendid

[informmaha]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

Came the time for feedback, I was given a feedback form. Mentioned all the observations and also the goof-up in the TD variant. I told that I am going to book the car in first or second week of March so send the updated quotes and discount details for the month of March on March 1st, as that will be required to make the 'final decision', which they agreed. Said thanks to the guys and went in the home 'satisfied' after 35 kms of drive.

Oh man!!! what a test drive this is You have definitely tested it as you had owned it. This might be of good help for those who don't do extensive test drive (including me ). I did the same kind of test drive for a cruze just to check for the cruise control when my friend was about to get that, but didn't find patience to pen down the same as you have done. Great work !!! and an advance welcome to the Beat Club...I can expect a good ownership report from you as many have done here..

[Mafia]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

Said thanks to the guys and went in the home 'satisfied' after 35 kms of drive.

wow! you did test it like you owned it!! glad to know my choice is good! and it is quiet a goof up with the variant! AFAIK there are no LS variant used for TD at all in Bangalore! I test drove the car 3 times before booking. each time in a different showroom all the three were the LT variant!