[DocwithFiesta]

Hello,
I am going to share my experience under the following headings:

(i) Why we decided to get a car in first place.
(ii) What options did we have(car options).
(iii) The search/test drive process.
(iv) The Spinny experience (before buying).
(v) Spinny experience (during the buying process).
(vi) Small issue after buying.
(vii) Review of the Grand i10.

I will try to keep it Crisp and Concise.

(i) Why we decided to get a car in first place:

We have a 1.6 Fiesta, 2010 model and a non-functional Fiat Uno (more on that some other day).
The Fiestas always had/have issues of developing rust on literally every body panel, so to get it sorted, the car needed to be away for weeks and since we did not have any other car, meant it would be difficult to survive without the Fiesta. So we decided to get a small second car for us, and that's when the hunt started, in early January 2022.


(ii) What options did we have(car options):

Initially we wanted to get an used Alto K10/Hyundai Eon, as our budget was not that huge ~ 1.5 to 2 Lakh rupees.

So we started looking for one, went to car dealers all over the city, test drove K10s and Eons, but soon realised that maybe we needed something a little bigger.

We then increased our budget to upto 5 Lakh rupees. And we wanted a Hatchback, given we already had/have a Sedan, thought hatchback would be little practical to use within the city.

We narrowed down to the Maruti Celerio and the Hyundai Grand i10.

The Ford Figo was another option, but it was not sensible to get a Ford given Ford had already left the country. And we had a Ford already, wanted to try some other car brand.

Another option could have been a slightly older Hyundai i20 elite, basic model: but we wanted top model only. And didn't want something as big as the i20.

(iii) The search/test drive process:

Test drove a Maruti Celerio at a local used car dealership and the car felt very light/ flimsy/ poorly put together.
The dealership had few Grand i10s as well, but all driven over 50k kms, and no Asta- we wanted an Asta car with less than 35k kms.


And then one day Google showed an ad of Spinny out of nowhere (everybody knows how smart Google is nowadays). That's how we got introduced to Spinny.

(iv) The Spinny experience (before buying):

So we found a 2014 White Grand i10 Asta (the top trim), manual for Rs. 4.5 Lakh with around 35k kms if I remember right. The pricing was appealing, so we decided to book a test drive. Spinny has an option of bringing the car to your home for a test drive, and quite naturally we opted for that.
The car arrived for test drive at the exact time on the exact day, we did the test drive and well, kind of liked the car. The salesman was knowledgeable enough about the car and the company's policies.



However, we thought we would book the car the following day.

But on the same evening we found on their website, that the car was booked by someone else. We were quite upset, naturally.

The Grand i10s sell like hot cakes!

We called the Spinny representative and informed about the situation, he advised us to wait for a week because Spinny has this policy which allows you to return the car within a period of few days if you are not satisfied with the car. But that never happened and the car's advertisement was lifted from the website after a few days.

So, now, we are again searching for a Grand i10 on Spinny and after a week or so, a Blue Grand i10 pops up, 2017 car, Asta, 12k kms, for 5.3 Lakh Rupees -very very appealing.

(v) Spinny experience (during the buying process):

We didn't wait a single minute and booked the car even before taking a test drive. By now, we have little confidence in the company.

We advised the Spinny representative to bring the car directly to our local Hyundai service center, where we had a proper look at the car, including the underbody.

The car after the inspection.

We then took a test drive and well: on a car with just 12k kms, what could possibly be wrong, the car was perfect.

It was a Saturday, and we decided to pay the full amount on Sunday morning.
On Sunday morning, we go to the Spinny hub, on OMR (Chennai).
We didn't find our car at their parking lot, and asked the representative about where the car was - he said the car had been sent for delivery preparation (quite nice, given that we had not paid for the car yet).

The Spinny lot.

So yeah, we go to their office and pay the full amount. Signed all necessary document transfer papers and all.

Paid for the car Sunday morning 11am, and they are already at our home with the car in the evening, around 4pm- quite impressive, hey!?

Delivery.


Rituals.




On second day of ownership.

(vi) Small issue after buying: Regarding insurance.

Had a minor accident on Bangalore highway after crossing Poonamallee, near Saveetha Hospital- I was in the left lane of the 2 lane(on either side) highway and there was a lot of traffic. There was a truck to my right, near my C-Pillar. The local share autos and bikes were pushing me from my left to my right. I was in such a situation that I had to slightly move right otherwise the autos would scratch my car. The truck, being near the C-Pillar, was at my blind spot and I didn't see the truck. At one point I felt I was trying to steer right but the car would not move right, and looked in my mirror only the find the truck touching my rear quarter panel. It was a terrible situation, my first accident.



The truck driver was not at fault because it was probably not possible for him to see me from his place.



Now the actual problem comes. We realised that the car insurance was not transferred by Spinny to our name and that meant we would not be able to claim insurance for this incident. Spinny did not inform this either, to us.
So there was no other way, than getting the car repaired without insurance with our own money.


And after the repair process, we transferred the insurance, as it required inspection of the car.

Later I heard, Spinny have started transferring insurance as well, to the buyer's name. Anyways, it's still better to cross check this while buying a car from Spinny.

Since then we have used the car left, right and center.


A drive to Tirupati.


With a friend's i20 Elite.

The car had 12k kms when we got it in February and by May, it had clocked 19k kms. The car currently is at the 22k km mark.

The reason for clocking kilometers so rapidly from February to May was due to regular highway driving as I used to drive from Chennai to Kanchipuram almost every week (if not twice a week).

On the then newly inaugurated Kanchipuram flyover.

And since May, I have used the car in the city, occassionally. My mom drives the car nowadays.

With a friend's NIOS.



(vii) Review of the Grand i10:

So now, let me introduce the car we have:
It's a Grand i10 Asta 1.2 Petrol Manual finished in a shade named Marina Blue. Asta being the top variant comes loaded with all the bells and whistles one can expect from a car in the segment.

The car has rear parking sensors and camera, an 8-inch touch screen with Bluetooth connectivity and Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, ABS, 2 Airbags, rear AC vents, request sensor on driver's door (the pre-facelift Asta had request sensors on passenger door as well), rear window defogger, rear wiper, DRLs, auto folding ORVMs, steering mounted audio controls and buttons from accepting or rejecting phone calls.



Ok, here are the observations I have made after driving the car for about 8-9k kms.

I will list them as Likes and Dislikes.

Likes:
1. Features: Despite the car having few features that are not absolutely necessary, there are few features that certainly stands out to me: (i) Calling function from steering wheel-very useful, I use it way too often (ii) Rear parking camera and sensors (iii) Request sensor- very useful when your hand are occupied. (iv) The ORVMs fold automatically on locking the car and vice versa, which is quite useful.

2. Ease of driving in the city: the car has good all-around visibility, making it easy to drive in the city.

Peek-a-boo!

3. A quiet and smooth engine: Although noise insulation levels are not the best, the engine is very smooth and quiet.

4. Looks: The car certainly looks quite sporty as well as classy!



5. Brakes: Brakes are too good. I generally drive a Ford Fiesta, and Fiesta guys will know how awful the brakes are, on that car. So yeah, the brakes on the i10 certainly impressed me.

6. Good high speed stability: Believe it or not, the car feels very stable at highway speeds of 120kmph.

7. Very common: These are everywhere.

Two blue Grand i10s spotted from another blue Grand i10.

Dislikes:
1. Cabin insulation: Not the best, expected it to be better.

2. Mileage: We get around 10-12 kmpl in the city, which is not at all good for a small 1.2L engined car.


3. Less power: The engine very much feels lethargic and lacks any sort of punch. It's a slow revving unit as well. I am used to driving a 1.6 Fiesta, and on the highways the Fiesta faces no problem in keeping up with other modern cars and can even overtake cars easily. Meanwhile with the i10, that's not the case.

4. Poor quality parts: The door handle cup(as Hyundai calls it)-the smaller part of the outside door handle, broke twice during our ownership (first time, it was the rear right side door, next time it was the front passenger door) and just the cup costs 900 rupees, and being chrome plated, it's not easily available either.

5. Wheel alignment issue: The alignment gets disturbed every 3-4k kms. Not sure if the problem is specific for our car or it's a general problem of all Grand i10s. As far as I have heard, many Hyundai cars have wheel alignment issue.


6. Stock tyres are awful: The stock Goodyear tyres are just terrible, awful. Too much tyre noise, too much unnecessary movement (wobbly) at around 30-60kmph.

Now let's discuss some points in the form of question answers:

1. How much does servicing cost?

Regular servicing costs around 4.5k to 5k rupees, but if you are not vigilant enough about what they are doing, they may end up charging you a lot by adding unnecessary things. For example they said, on our car with 20k kms, that the clutch has started to wear out, and needs attention - wow, at just 20k kms!
Wheel alignment costs Rs.1.5k, MRF Tyredrome charges 800 rupees for wheel alignment.


2. What's the mileage the car returns?

Mileage is not that great
In City, one can expect 10-12 kmpl and on the highway- 14kmpl. I have averaged 15kmpl on one occasion only.


3. What's the top speed of this car?

I have never pushed the car that hard. The maximum speed I have done is 130kmph on Chennai Bangalore highway and it is not recommended to drive faster than that either.

The car was quite stable and composed at that speed and there were no body movements at all.

I guess this sums up pretty much the ownership experience of the Grand i10 Asta 1.2 Petrol. The ownership was pretty much uneventful apart from the above-mentioned things.

Enjoy few more images.


At a wonderful road named Besant Avenue.


At Besant Nagar beach.



Thank you

[GTO]

Great review, thanks for sharing! Will be going to our homepage today .

Good choice of car as well as company. These startups are making it way easier to purchase used cars by taking the pain points away (curation of cars, checking history, reliable paperwork, professional interactions instead of one-man show bullies). I feel the premium is well worth it for the smooth experience + time saved.

[bullitt1]

Originally Posted by DocwithFiesta

Hello,
I am going to share my experience under the following headings:

Congrats on the purchase and wish you many happy miles. I am also on lookout for small car, though automatic and Spinny seems to be better than rest. I found prices to be very high here, how was the negotiation by the way?

[DocwithFiesta]

Originally Posted by GTO

Great review, thanks for sharing! Will be going to our homepage today .

Thank you! It was my pleasure to share the experience.

Yes, startups like Spinny are making it extremely easy to purchase cars without any hassles whatsoever. The booking, inspection and delivery happened in about 24 hours, and the paperwork was completely managed by them, quite impressive!

Originally Posted by bullitt1

Congrats on the purchase and wish you many happy miles.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by bullitt1

I am also on lookout for small car, though automatic and Spinny seems to be better than rest. I found prices to be very high here, how was the negotiation by the way?

Spinny has a strict no-negotiation policy. The price they mention on the website is the final price and there is absolutely no scope for negotiation.

Spinny generally lists the cars that are absolutely pristine and clean. In my opinion, it is better to go with Spinny than other car dealers in the city. If any individual offers a similar car for a lower price, then it might be worth considering, but from dealers- absolutely no!

And for beaten-up cars, Spinny has a sister website named Truebil, where prices are less but the cars are not quite clean.

Originally Posted by DocwithFiesta

Paid for the car Sunday morning 11am, and they are already at our home with the car in the evening, around 4pm- quite impressive, hey!?

Another thing I would like to mention is that the RC transfer took 14 days in our case and the RC was couriered to our home.

[Vkap257]

Originally Posted by DocwithFiesta

Peek-a-boo!

Beautiful Shot!
Must serve as your wallpaper for atleast a Decade .

Happy motoring brother!

[DocwithFiesta]

Originally Posted by Vkap257

Beautiful Shot!
Must serve as your wallpaper for atleast a Decade .

Happy motoring brother!

Thank youu

The i10 has seen quite a few Lamborginis and vice versa.


This is the only Lamborghini Aventador SV Roadster in India.


This Lamborgini Huracan stays in the neighborhood.

[100Kmphormore]

Nice review! I have a question for the automobile gurus - Why is the i10 and Grand i10 or any Hyundai petrol for that matter not fuel efficient? Hyundai and Chevrolets are gas guzzlers without performance according to my experience. My uncles Grand i10 automatic never returned more than 8 kmpl, a manual i10 in the family never returned more than 10, whereas other similarly built cars give 14-15 min in the city. My earlier Spark never gave more than 8-9 kmpl (without AC) in the city.

[kedar_GT]

Originally Posted by 100Kmphormore

Nice review! I have a question for the automobile gurus - Why is the i10 and Grand i10 or any Hyundai petrol for that matter not fuel efficient? Hyundai and Chevrolets are gas guzzlers without performance according to my experience. My uncles Grand i10 automatic never returned more than 8 kmpl, a manual i10 in the family never returned more than 10, whereas other similarly built cars give 14-15 min in the city. My earlier Spark never gave more than 8-9 kmpl (without AC) in the city.

Hyundai normally aspirated petrol of the past (esp the 1.2L and the 1.6L) were inherently fuel inefficient. Couple this with a torque converter automatic transmission ( that really sucks a significant amount of power) and you have a deadly combination.
The manuals fared better - my 2009 1.1L Santro MT used to average 14-16 in the City whereas the 2012 i10 1.2L Auto returns 7-9kmpl on the same route/driving style.
The newer turbo engines are fuel efficient on the highway if driven with a steady right foot - but the city FE is equally unimpressive.

[100Kmphormore]

Hyundai normally aspirated petrol of the past (esp the 1.2L and the 1.6L) were inherently fuel inefficient.

Correct! Why is it so? is my question to have an understanding at a deeper level.

[Vkap257]

Originally Posted by 100Kmphormore

Nice review! I have a question for the automobile gurus - Why is the i10 and Grand i10 or any Hyundai petrol for that matter not fuel efficient? Hyundai and Chevrolets are gas guzzlers without performance according to my experience. My uncles Grand i10 automatic never returned more than 8 kmpl, a manual i10 in the family never returned more than 10, whereas other similarly built cars give 14-15 min in the city. My earlier Spark never gave more than 8-9 kmpl (without AC) in the city.

IMHO, this phenomenon is due to the weight of the vehicle with reference to engine size. If one compares this to let’s say a Swift, one will find that both the cars have 1200cc engines, however the Swift being atleast 200 kgs lighter, result in better fuel efficiency numbers. Similar results are observed when a lighter car like Santro is taken in consideration. Also, a Tata Tiago is slightly heavier relative to its size, but the deletion of 1 cylinder returns overall lower fuel consumption. This also results in characteristic 3 cylinder weedy NVH and power delivery.

Industry experts please weigh-in.

[furyrider]

Congratulations on your purchase. In a sea of whites and silvers, your car definitely stands out.

Originally Posted by DocwithFiesta

2. Mileage: We get around 10-12 kmpl in the city, which is not at all good for a small 1.2L engined car.

I owned a Star dust Gi10 for 3.5 years/23000 KM. I tried adjusting my driving style to the vehicle to eke out the best possible mileage. The 1.2 returns the best figures when driven in the 80-85 mark. Anything above that and the engine starts drinking fuel. The best I've managed was 19.xx on a 500 KM drive. Highway FE varied between 16 - 19 when driven between 80-90 Kmph. Of course, it is a pain to maintain such speeds. Highway runs usually returned 15.XX for me. The less I talk about the city mileage, the better.

I agree with the NVH. The engine was practically silent when new. As soon as the accumulated mileage got into the 5-digits, NVH went down drastically. I miss the sound the inline 4 made when accelerating in third gear though.

Other than these, it is a gem of a city car. Had to let go with a heavy heart since I had to make space for a bigger vehicle. I still miss mine though!

[DocwithFiesta]

Originally Posted by furyrider

Congratulations on your purchase. In a sea of whites and silvers, your car definitely stands out.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by furyrider

The 1.2 returns the best figures when driven in the 80-85 mark. Anything above that and the engine starts drinking fuel.

Indeed! I have noticed, that when driving at 100kmph and above, the fuel level drastically starts falling, so much so that you can actually see the fuel needle moving.

Originally Posted by furyrider

The best I've managed was 19.xx on a 500 KM drive. Highway FE varied between 16 - 19 when driven between 80-90 Kmph. Of course, it is a pain to maintain such speeds. Highway runs usually returned 15.XX for me. The less I talk about the city mileage, the better.

16-19kmpl is quite impressive tbh!

[mchandra13]

Congratulations on the new ride @DocwithFiesta

I have bought a second hand 2017 G i10 Sportz Auto(highest variant in AT) back in 2018. Back then the online market was not so mature and I tried some local dealers in my area in Blr and found their ways of selling to be full of deceit, unethical and even bullying. Hyundai dealers in Blr didnt have that many used automatic G i10s in stock. Then I searched online and found a private party car in one of those trading sites and bought it from him.

I can relate with you completely on the G i10 experience after driving mine for 1.5 yrs. I gave it to my in-laws later and I still drive it occasionally if I am at their place. The car was a pretty good drive and the auto was peppy in city and decent in highways as well. I didnt experience as much lag in Auto as you mentioned in the MT Asta.
For mileage, I was getting 10-12Kmpl in city and upto 15Kmpl.

Its good to know that companies like Spinny are providing a good service in selling used cars. I have never tried them but will definitely keep it in mind as an option for the next time.

[demolisherking]

It’s a superb review DocWithFiesta. I'm currently in a hunt for used Gran i10 as my first car. It is indeed selling like hotcakes. I checked out a 2014 Grand i10 with 34k on the odometer at around 1 PM. I liked the car a lot, got the service records from the RM and went through it as well. Meticulously maintained. Being new to driving, I wanted a friend to test drive it before making a decision. He wasn't available then, so I rescheduled for 4 PM. The RM suggested I book the car if I was interested, but I figured I'd be back in a few hours and assumed it would still be there. However, by 4 PM when we arrived at Spinny Hub, the car was already booked by someone else.

Hoping I will find something soon.

[RoadFiend]

Originally Posted by DocwithFiesta

However, we thought we would book the car the following day.

But on the same evening we found on their website, that the car was booked by someone else. We were quite upset, naturally.

The Grand i10s sell like hot cakes!

Lovely review and congratulations on the blue beauty! The write-up is terrific! Your experience opened my eyes to the sophistication of Spinny platform!

For selling my Grand i10, so far I've stayed away from these portals and posted in tbhp classifieds (BHPian-owned cars for Sale | Pics & details). If the selling-like-hotcakes doesn't come to pass then I might have to approach these platforms instead, let me see