[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by FrAgile

Is this really true? I am hearing about this for the first time. Usually, manufacturers do give a washer functionality if they are putting a wiper. I thought it's as basic as a power steering in cars being sold in 2022.

I didn't noticed the wash solution when I was playing with the car in the first day. Both the manual and wiper stick have the option listed. So I might have missed it. Hyundai is notorious for providing them only in top variants years ago.

Originally Posted by MayurS

Congratulations on your new Car. Regarding in car WiFi connectivity option that you have mentioned there is a workaround for that. Download the JioMotive app from your App Store and login it with the same number which you use for My Skoda connect app and click on your car name. You will find the WiFi settings over there which you can used to turn on the WiFi.
Thanks

Thanks for the wishes. To be clear, I have to download the JioMotive App in my phone, am I right? I will try that. Already now there are two apps - My Skoda Connect and My Skoda and I have to add an third app for Wi-Fi settings

Originally Posted by AROO7

I too have the same make and model i10 but with half the ODO reading as it is used as a beater. But apart from that AC failure issue rest of the issues also cropped up in my car. The exhaust pipe was replaced and it costed me over 6,000 INR. For the small LCD, Hyundai will replace the entire unit, and that costs over 15,000 INR so I have skipped that. The ride quality of the i10 isn't the best by default so you will feel the difference in other cars with better suspension. If you are planning to keep the i10 then I would suggest you upgrade your headlamps to a 90/100 setup for better illumination. Use proper relays and don't remove the dust cap for accommodating the new setup. Also, adjust the beam properly and use low beam only in the city with the above setup as the lights are powerful and will cause issues to the oncoming traffic. Rest all you can keep stock. Lastly, congratulations on the new car. Happy Motoring!!

Hey Thanks! Yes, the latest cost of i10 silencer replacement is 7500+ INR but outside it is 2500+ INR and if it can be gas welded it is just 500 INR. For AC, I believe it is the leakage and possibly evaporator core needs replacement. It may cost 10,000 INR in Hyundai which is cost of parts + Level 4 AC service in Hyundai parlance. I recently did it in my father in laws i10. I am not planning to replace the entire unit for the small LCD. The plan for i10 is just to keep running local errands within the campus (3 Kms radius) and a back up. So headlights are still stock. Thanks for the suggestion.

Originally Posted by cpabhijit

Hey, congratulations on the Kushaq. Lovely vehicle. My dad bought the same Red colour 1.0 Ambition MT in August last year and it is a delight to drive.

It definitely has rear wipe & wash. All you have to do is the opposite of front wash & wipe (yes, front & back sequences are different). Push the wiper stalk away from you to the 'Rear Wiper Turn On' position and push further and hold. Soap solution will trickle down from a small (red) nozzle, which is located to the right of the HMSL. Let it go and it will return to the Turn On position.

One more quick tip is, the rear wiper turns on in the 'Intermittent' setting. If you want continuous wipe, push the wiper stalk further away and release (quickly, in a single motion). Bingo, there's continuous wipe for you.

.

Nice to know your dad is enjoying the car. Thanks for the confirmation on washer. When I looked at the HMSL, I thought it was a blemish from the plastic tooling. I will check out the wash function and thanks for the useful tip on how to use it. I felt the multi functional wiper stalk a little confusing to use first time given the many settings.

One question to you - There is a setting in the Infotainment for wiper to do a wipe once reverse is engaged. Do you know it is available?.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by vasanthn21

One observation - While you are aware of the Skoda horror stories, you are willing to give it a try. On the other hand, you are aware that Tata is improving (based on the recent experiences in the forum as you say), but still you didn't want to try it. Interesting isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with this. It is a matter of personal choice. But, I read somewhere that men make most decisions emotionally first, and then try to justify it with logic. Do you think Skoda tugged more at your heart? (quite possible, as Skodas have always been a better driver's car compared to most Tata cars and also, I believe it is considered a premium brand when compared with Tata)

You have a point. When I did the original analysis, it did not include Skoda itself. I was mainly looking for Sub 4m SUV's due to parking constraints. Truth to be told is the last Tata I have sat on is Indigo, Zest, Bolt times and I know how fared in the ownership. It etched in my memory and hence even the new Gen Tatas are not considered.

Your second point is about confirmation bias. I was biased towards Mahindra XUV300 but the poor dealership experience and the need to get a car quickly pushed towards Skoda. Once I took the Kushaq test drive, I was impressed along with the family and based on favorable dealership experience voted with my wallet and got it.

About being premium brand, in India still general thinking is that any foreign brand is premium. However here most are aware of the so called 'premiumness' of the Kias and Skodas outside India.

[Sricar]

Hi,
First let me congratulate you for the new car! Many Happy Miles to you!

And thanks a lot for answering my query on the Kushaq review page and offering to help on my purchase. That was kind of you.
I also did TD of City, Astor and Venue in December from showrooms on OMR as I live in Sholinganallur. And it seemed we will have to wait for a long time to get delivery of Astor. City was ruled out by my wife. Liked the Venue and was planning to visit the Škoda show room to have a look at the Kushaq. But had to leave the country and visit my daughter in Dubai. Here whenever I am on road I am just left gaping at the wide variety of cars available here. You name a car, you can see it here. When we visited an area called JBR (mostly inhabited by whites) the cars parked on the side of the road were a treat to watch. Don’t know if I can share the pictures here. Once near Burj Khalifa I saw a Gold sheeted Rolls Royce and it took me some time to move away!
Whenever I see all these fabulous vehicles here, all I can mutter to myself was ‘நமக்கில்லை சொக்கா!’ (Not for me).��

Anyway my hunt for the next car will begin in March when I return to Chennai. Will definitely reach out to you.
Thanks again.

MOD NOTE :- Please punctuate after your sentence. Please use space after the punctuation. Request you to please go through Forum Etiquettes thoroughly.
Thanks.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by Sricar

Hi,
First let me congratulate you for the new car! Many Happy Miles to you!

And thanks a lot for answering my query on the Kushaq review page and offering to help on my purchase. That was kind of you.
I also did TD of City, Astor and Venue in December from showrooms on OMR as I live in Sholinganallur. And it seemed we will have to wait for a long time to get delivery of Astor. City was ruled out by my wife. Liked the Venue and was planning to visit the Škoda show room to have a look at the Kushaq. But had to leave the country and visit my daughter in Dubai. Here whenever I am on road I am just left gaping at the wide variety of cars available here. You name a car, you can see it here. When we visited an area called JBR (mostly inhabited by whites) the cars parked on the side of the road were a treat to watch. Don’t know if I can share the pictures here. Once near Burj Khalifa I saw a Gold sheeted Rolls Royce and it took me some time to move away!
Whenever I see all these fabulous vehicles here, all I can mutter to myself was ‘நமக்கில்லை சொக்கா!’ (Not for me).��

Anyway my hunt for the next car will begin in March when I return to Chennai. Will definitely reach out to you.
Thanks again.
.

On your return to India, you can check out Kushaq in Perungudi, OMR itself at KUN Skoda. Their service center is also in the opposite lane. In fact, now Perungudi - Sholinganallur belt has almost all car brands similar to Vavin, Ambattur next to each other. Also, you can check Kia Seltos if your needs are to have higher ingress/egress if you can extend your budget for 1.5NA engine + Automatic.

On Dubai, yes the cars will be drool worthy. At the peak of oil boom, even in European capitals, the ultra luxury cars are from Dubai for summer vacation. I got the same feeling years ago

[thanixravindran]

A small update: It's a month now but not munching many miles, so the ODO is still below 1000 Kms. Planned for weekend trip a week ago but got cancelled as my son was not well. So running is restricted in mixed roads on the outskirts and the City on Weekends.

Only once I got a chance to be with her 'alone' and got a lonely stretch with the driver display was set to show the Digital Speedometer. So decided to commit sin. It was dope to see the speedo digits moving like the fuel pump dispenser display rapidly (it will be good to configure the revs which would have been even more fun) I can only imagine how the younger sibling will be. Hmm!!

Since I mentioned about fuel dispenser display, did a Full Tank to Full Tank efficiency check. It has returned 12.2 Kms with fully AC ON. Since it is still in run in period, I was varying the Revs and hence was driving in low gears to get the Revs cross 2000 rpm. The display keeps reminding to up shift. But anyway it is better than my i10. So no complaints. Reminds me that I have a family to take care in these high fuel price times.

One of my friend came from USA and the first question on switching on the car was 'Why did you got a Diesel car' Apart from the 3 pot groan, not hearing any creaks or rattles. Touch wood!!!

Got the first small scratch in the lower left corner of the plastic fender when I have to move my car towards left in a small street to make way for a water tanker and slightly touched a decent sized left over stone on the front of under construction house. Glad that it is not the regular painted bumper.

After reading here, I tried to switch ON the Jio SIM Wi-Fi through JioMotive app but it does not recognize my mobile number though My Skoda Connect app is logged in using my mobile number only.

So hoping to get the car detailed this month and a long trip.

[stormcatcher83]

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

My car purchasing conundrum and how I ended up with a Skoda Kushaq in 2022. Read on!!!

Prelude:
I own a 2011 Hyundai i10 Kappa2 VTVT Asta which has run 67,000 Kms. It was purchased when I was working in Bangalore and few years ago I have relocated back to Chennai. Thanks to our government rules/inefficiencies, I have to shell out Rs. 40,000 as road tax to register again here. I did not wanted to let it go as I love the car as it has never let me down in the last 11 years. It was running smoothly with just routine servicing both from Hyundai as well FNG. I was procrastinating about getting a new car for some time but kept delaying and the pandemic that struck two years ago delayed the decision further.

In between, due to circumstances I have to change my job and my new job is in Hyderabad. I am totally remote till now but the thought of moving to Hyderabad has put the car purchase decision ON HOLD. However, at the start of last year (2021), my i10 has started showing the age with AC failure (Guess AC pipe leakage or evaporate core leakage), Silencer rust (which is a common compliant) and the failure of small LCD in the Infotainment system.

It looks like Hyundai has designed with reliability target Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) of 10 years. Though I am willing to live with them after fixing, I do not want to be stopped often with the outstation car. Since we do not have any travel due to pandemic, the needs were not immediate. However by the end of the year, family really wanted a new car in Chennai and hence I decided to proceed for car hunt.

Car Hunt
I started my Car hunt in December though I have burnt my fingers in my first car purchase during 2007 when I was cheated by a Maruti dealer in Bangalore [Sagar automobiles agreed on the offer and after payment, simply gave it to some one else who gave few more thousands of rupees. I was told to take new Jan model. I walked away turning it down and got the money back].

My order of preference for a new car is
1. No car (Not the best time to buy a new car as the entire auto industry is in a flex)
2. Electric car (Futuristic and go for it if you don't want to pay obscene taxes and support the manufacturer)
3. Petrol Automatic (if you want to support yourself for better health in our congested roads)
4. Petrol Manual (It will always be an option in the table as 'Salt & Pepper' when all else does not work)

I do not prefer Diesel due to my low running needs. First option is obviously ruled out by the wife. Second option is ruled out as the electric supply at my area itself is erratic since it is on the outskirts of Chennai even though I have rooftop solar available. So it has to be a Petrol - Automatic (Preferred due to my Bangalore traffic experience) or Manual is acceptable. While researching, I realized how the market has moved from Naturally aspirated engine to small Turbo petrol engine cars. Now there are only very few options for NA petrol.

I shortlisted my requirements as below -

1. Ride comfort (obviously coming from i10)
2. Safety (11 years ago itself my i10 had ABS and 2 airbags)
3. Comfort Features (I like how Hyundai and now Kia brings all the higher segment features into daily usage cars)
4. Reliability (Being a single car garage, it is important to have less down time. My i10 has never seen beyond a single day service)
5. Immediate delivery (Not a big fan of long waiting time models as in our country there are too many variables and customer always bears the brunt; I like to book and take in the same month)

My constraints are
1. Parking - Since I stay in a independent row house, my parking is limited. It is exactly 4.3 meters.
2. Crossover - Since I stay in the outskirts of Chennai, Sedan is ruled out due to speed breakers.
3. Budget - I have a max budget of 15 Lakhs. I do not have option for any tax breaks as I don't have a business (depreciation benefit). As I am salaried, I do have company car policy but it is applicable only for Hyderabad. So I didn't wanted to go beyond 15 Lakhs. Also, I never buy things on loan and I will save the money even if it takes years and purchase outright only. Bliss of living a debt free life needs to be experienced!!

With the above constraints, I have considered the below cars - Sub 4m crossovers calling themselves as SUVs. This is the hottest segment in India and we are spoiled by choices. Combined with small turbo Petrols (< 1.2L), the tax structure results in competitive prices.

1. Ford Ecosport - Ruled out as Ford decided to pack the bags after creating the segment.
2. Maruti Brezza - I will never buy a Maruti after my first car buying experience.
3. Mahnidra XUV300 - Amazing car which has fitted the bill perfectly
4. Tata Nexon - I still think Tata cars lack quality control though recent experiences in the forum show otherwise. Ruled out.
5. Renault Kiger/Nissan Magnite - Very good VFM package.
6. Kia Sonet - After all everyone in the town buys a Kia.
7. Honda WRV - I was surprised that Honda still sells them.
8. Morris Garage Astor - Don't want to let the entire world know that there is Internet Inside (In reality we all know about the internet behind the great wall)
9. Hyundai Venue - I have lived with Hyundai for 11 years but really tired of their service center antics
10. Toyota Urban cruiser - Seriously Toyota, all you can do is to rebadge a Maruti?

With the above, I have done a Pugh matrix with Needs Vs Features of available cars. It is no wonder Mahindra XUV300 came as the winner with flying colors. Kia Sonet came second and Renault Kiger/Nissan Magnite came third. All of these on paper. Now it is time to validate the theory.

Showroom Visit and Test Drive:
Mahindra:
Visited Mahindra website and booked a home test drive at 12 Dec, 9.00 PM in the Sunday night. In the next minute, I got a call from Mahindra and got all the details and based on my location, he assigned it to OMR Dealer AMPL. I was impressed on the quick action. Next day morning, dealer contacted me and got address. They sent the Diesel AMT since they don't have Petrol AMT for test drive by lunch time. I took the test drive and the parking test.

+
1. Wide Cabin - Proper 5 seater.
2. Ride comfort - Okay but not very smooth may be because of test drive vehicle
3. Interior and Comfort features - Excellent. Loaded to brim. Dashboard and infotainment is well integrated.
4. Proven Safety and Build - Top notch. Everything was well put is a understatement.

-
1. Boot space - Very small boot and as written in Team BHP, they don't have parcel tray even in top model so that it masks the shortcoming.
2. Feature deletion - Long list of feature deletion over the period of few years. I got three different brochure for it. So it is a gamble to book.
3. AMT - I feel for the price, a proper automatic can be provided but this is not a deal breaker for me. But given Mahindra's poor track record with TUV300 AMT, I decided against it. Petrol AMT was just launched 1 year ago and I was not sure of its sales numbers and hence its reliability.

It passed both the test drive and parking test. So I have decided to go for Petrol W8 (OPT) MT. Price is 11.8 Lakhs Ex-showroom and On road price will be closer to 14 Lakhs. There are year end offers of Rs. 25,000 Cash discount and Rs. 4,000 Corporate discount. There is also a Rs. 25,000 Exchange bonus available. But the dealer is not transparent with these Mahindra offers. I have got this confirmed by Mahindra itself. I told I will visit the showroom and will finalize the booking in the following weekend with color choice but could not make it on 18 Dec. However I visited the showroom on 19 Dec, Sunday and looked at the vehicle and colors. Red was the choice of the family. Being Sunday, I could not finalize the price and book the car there itself.

Renault
I decided to visit other showrooms also since they are in the same area - Perungudi, OMR. I skipped Honda as I have already ruled out WR-V. I visited Renault showroom and looked at Kiger. They are straightforward and have only stock on the top end Dual tone and only two pieces - White/Black and Blue/White combination left. All else have a waiting list of 3 months. I somehow did not liked Kiger interior space and crossed it out.

Kia
Next visit is Kia showroom. We checked out the Sonet. This is a big disappointment as the interior space looked exactly like i10 and the Infotainment screen with its disproportionate buttons is a huge let down. The roof liner slopes towards the front makes it worse for me as my head almost touches the roof (I am 6 feet tall). My wife did not even want to sit in the car for a test drive. We checked out Seltos and was really impressed by the overall package. It ticks all boxes and no wonder it sells like the hot cake notwithstanding the safety rating. Seltos has too many variants and decently loaded variant is outside of my budget. However the dealership experience is very sub par - They did not even took my number or interested to about my requirements but gave their number to call if I wanted to book. This is how success have made them arrogant.

Skoda
Next to Kia is the KUN Skoda showroom. Providence has made me walk into the showroom to just show my wife the Kushaq just for comparison purpose. Little I know at that time I will eventually buy it from the same place. We checked out the display car and it felt okay though it lacked the finesse of Seltos. Biggest reason is the interior theme which is dull and reminded the Wagon R of past decade. On just casually checking the price, I was told Ambition has 50,000 INR discount and insurance discounts are also available (the feel good discount without any real discount). I realized how Skoda messed up the pricing and a new car within 6 months of launch is providing discounts. I was offered a test drive the next day, I politely declined and informed I will reach out if I need it as I was not keen on Skoda.

First of all Congratulations Sir on your new family Member

I totally agree with you on the car buying experience being a very emotional and auspicious occasion for us Indians. And its a fact that the human touch in sales makes all the difference. Yet companies tend to forget that along with the 'product' the experience also matters.
As a product Mahindra XUV 300 is a very good one but true it is getting overwhelmed by the 700 & the Thar. Also some of the Car Brands (KIA) are getting arrogant to the point that they simply dont care.

I just wondered why there was no TATA on your list, neverthless best wishes to the miles to come

[thanixravindran]

3 month update:

It is 3 months now with the Kushaq. Car is seeing quite less driving with only weekend errands. Overall experience is smooth as ODO is just under 1500 Km ODO mark in 3 months. This is going to be a low runner. No issues of any rattling or EPC errors faced. I am just using regular Petrol from HP or BP only.

I did a 300Km drive from Madras to Pondy and back couple of weeks ago with a fully loaded car. It is a nice relaxed drive onwards using GST road and return was spirited drive in ECR. Never felt any lack of power or this is a 1.0L engine. It brings a smile each time you downshift and then speed up your way that makes you forget the pain of your left leg in MT cars. I have written about the AC performance (or the lack of) in the other thread.

Skoda does not have any check-up service in 2 months or 1500 Kms and it is directly at the 1 year mark. However, I believe it is better to have a check up once early on at least to have peace of mind. I am yet to take extended warranty or do a detailing on the car which I have to plan next. After watching so many scary videos, Dashcam must to be added but still the thought of powered 12V socket or wiring with fuse is keeping me away. I have to explore a solution without having any trouble with Skoda warranty.