Creta – I bought this car with lot of passion keeping a close watch until the launch. However I regret for two silly reasons one being the hype around it that silently kept me in trance until I bought this overpriced car that is easily an excess of 4 Lakhs over my budget.
The other reason is what I hardly could digest, the ugly name "Creta" that somehow reminds me of the word Excreta. So gave it a better name myself ‘
WHIGER” as in White Tiger.
Delivery details of my White Hyundai Creta SX+ CRDI.
Booking Date – Saturday, July 25th 2015
Booking Amount – Rs.25000
Dealer – Advaith Hyundai, Bellandur/Varthur Road, Bangalore
Sales Advisor – Charles (Mr.Nice Guy)
Sales Manager - Prashanth.M.G (Mr.Bad Guy)
On Road Cost – Rs.1597095
Company Warranty – 3yrs
Insurance – HDFC Ergo
Delivery Date – Friday, 4th September 2015
Manufactured Year – July (VIN# G)
Tyres – Goodyear
Odometer reading on delivery – 9 Kms
Fuel Refilled on delivery – 3 Litres
Registration – Done with number plate.
Dealership Experience
I intentionally preferred the dealer Advaith for Creta, In spite of a nearby Trident dealer who was offering lesser waiting time. That is because of the smooth experience I had couple of years ago with our EON LPG Magna+ for my wife. However not all the days are same, I almost had to run into argument this time and nearly cancelled my booking when the sales manager denied delivering a car for me if I demand for insurance from outside.
Skipping to the final day, the car is prepared for the delivery on time but with only paper mats. Yes!! No floor mats given. Had to hear a stupid excuse saying floor mats are out of stock in Bangalore this month with all Hyundai Dealers. SA promised the stock to arrive in 15-20 days. These in-fact are very small things but when ignored can become dirty spoilers in the overall purchase experience.
Quick Observations:
I wanted to be a tough critique for today though it is easily my favorite car already and needless to say that I bought this car for numerous good things it is offering that we already know.
1. I can’t stop falling in love with my Whiger all over again every time I see its elegant front. But hugely disappointed with its age old ugly back.
2. Overall build quality is good but not great, a step below VW cars as I see it. Even i20 Active somehow feels more premium with its contemporary looks in & out for my personal taste.
3. To me the bonnet of this car is a tad bit stretched and you may take time to gain confidence maneuvering within the city traffic. I find myself getting edgy every time a biker does a close overtake especially from the front left.
4. My first generation i20 Asta Crdi has a better looking gear knob with leather wrap and a chrome finish. Whereas this top ends minus 1 Creta here gets a boring plastic gear box.
5. The gear positioning as well is not very ideal for my usage, especially when a Litre bottle is tucked in the holder behind the gears it hampers a smooth hand movement.
6. Though the transmission do not clunk any bit from gear to gear, it does not give you solid feel and sometimes you can find the gear stick being little flimsy if you hold it firmly for a while when you drive. Also a satisfying click can be hit and miss with the reluctant second gear.
7. Gone are the days for me honking by gently pressing the horn just using either of my thumb. Could be because of a new car but I find the horn in Creta is hard to press. Close but doesn’t sound as loud and soft as Skoda or Windtone horns.
8. Controls from the steering wheel is not adequate especially while you have to scroll down in the screen with a long list of songs, or a menu. Every time reaching out for the knob next to the AVN doesn’t make good sense while driving.
9. You cannot turn off ignition let’s say in traffic without interrupting the media player. You have to reboot the engine again to resume playing.
10. Dialing or receiving a call from Bluetooth triggers song playback soon after the call is disconnected. So it doesn’t care if you are not in a mood to listen songs.
11. Something is better than nothing, otherwise the maps offered by MMI are crappy as I was never a fan of them. Most of the POI’s are either outdated or not registered. Except in emergency these maps cannot come handy and replace your google maps. Otherwise touch and hardware from Hyundai is impressive. Voice commands or Voice Search could have been a great add-on to the AVN but missed. The navigation can be often misleading. Especially while approaching a specific flyover it kept saying keep left when the flyover is actually on to the right.
12. With high quality 320Kbps MP3 rips the audio system can deliver good amount of bass that can boom your heart, however it is not great when handling tweeters and the audio treble as I found it to be bit noisy.
13. Nothing fancy with the driver side controls and you don’t even see these buttons in the night except for only two that light up.
14. The instrument control display that comes with SX+ is almost useless. Neither DTE nor gear shift indicators are displayed. You can see which door is open otherwise.
15. There is little to no sound for lock/unlock again with this car from Hyundai. This can be a personal preference but without it not really helping in huge parking lots unless you come close.
16. I never ever wanted to own a white car, it is not so cool color for my taste but ended up buying the same as Red was the only other color that closely appealed to us.
The Burning Issues – Probably specific to my car
1. Full Clutch Tap – Every time (except for few times) when I press full clutch it gives me a small annoying tap sound as though it had hit some hard sheet behind the pedal. I tried pressing it all different ways soft and hard and this sound repeats with a full deep clutch.
2. Slow Viper Speed – The viper speed selection controls offered on Creta are really good. But the happiness lasted until I started using it in the rain. The vipers speed up only by micro seconds until it reaches its maximum and which is still no good if it is pouring rain. Are these by any chance rain sensing vipers
Mileage & Performance Figures from OBDII & Torque pro
I created a profile for Creta assuming a Kerb weight of 1400Kgs to check its performance using my OBD2 controller that I was using with my i20 effectively.
Distance & Speed Graph on the map. Red indicates high traffic areas with little movement.
These are certainly not the best mileage figures as it was taken in the peak traffic hours of Bangalore.
From those few short trips I made the best average mileage I achieved is ~8Kmpl & best instant mileage is 19Kmpl using 4th gear (0 clutch).
Accessories & External Modifications
Took my car directly from showroom to SLNP as I spoke to them the previous day about 3M vinyl job for glossy black roof top. However that remained pending in-spite of all my efforts the whole day talking even to 3M car care as glossy black was out of stock.
With all the regrets from the unfinished roof job, I went to Devraj the next day for leather wrapping on my steering wheel. Chose black leather and it took around 2 hours. Not a great snug and slim fit but certainly the best you can get in Bangalore.
Ordered and awaiting delivery of a leather smart key holder and interior slot pads from Aliexpress.
Having said all this, let me honestly admit that my observations above are only from a short 140 Kms driving experience in 2 days. It was a pain in the wrong area when I had to leave abroad just after two days of my new car and I am yet to return back
