2011 Innova owner upgrades to 2023 Hycross: Impressions after 500 km

The Skoda Kodiaq and Hyundai Tucson were the other two cars which looked promising to me.

BHPian sdasgupta recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

My Tale of two Innovas - from Gen 2011 to Hycross - how “Lightning” became “Tony”

Happy New Year 2024 everyone. Since I recently upgraded from my 2012 (pre-facelift) model Innova to the Hycross just before Christmas, I thought I would begin the new year with a post on the experience.

The upgrade dilemma

Well, is there ever any reason to upgrade a Toyota Innova? These machines are indestructible and timeless! By October 2023, my Innova was 11 years old and had crossed the 120K kms mark, but did not look or feel old in any way. The interiors were almost as good as new, and the common remark from my friends was that my car did not seem to age at all. It had never let me down and had needed only periodic maintenance, which was always done at Toyota service centres. So, though I had planned not to keep the car beyond 10 years, from a “head” perspective, there was no reason to change. But what about the “heart” side? I will confess that the Innova had never tugged at my heart, till Toyota unleashed the “Hycross” on us. It immediately appealed to me, and started me thinking - “well, this may be the perfect balance between head and heart”!

One thing that suddenly hit me when I brought up the topic of an upgrade with my family is that a car, when kept long enough, becomes part of the family and creates emotional bonds. Both my daughters had grown from childhood to teenage and adulthood in the capacious interiors of the car and had innumerable memories of long road trips, the car sometimes accommodating all of their friends. They had even named her “Lightning”. They were both like - “How can you think of selling a member of the family?”. Wifey also chimed in with - “The car has served us faithfully for so long, it feels like a betrayal to let it go.” So, you can see that I was in a real quandary.

How Lightning met her twin!

Since I have started telling this story, I have to include an incredible coincidence in 2022 that left me speechless. I had parked the car and gone into a shop and when I stepped out, I stopped and stared at the sight that met me! Wondering what I saw? I will let the picture below do the talking…and, as you will notice, even the number plates of the twins matched except for the last number. I had to immediately click a priceless picture. The nearer one on the left is my car.

How the decision was made

The event that tipped the scales came about in Q3 2023 when my company upgraded the car lease policy with even better terms including fuel reimbursement. This greatly strengthened the “head” factor of the decision. The “heart” had already been won over, so I finally firmed up my decision and started the paperwork in Sep 2023.

Other options considered

Even though I had almost decided on the Hycross, since I was planning to keep this too for a long time, I wanted to make sure that I looked at other viable alternatives, so that I would not regret my decision later. The other two cars that looked promising to me were the Skoda Kodiaq and the Hyundai Tucson. So I did take test drives of both before deciding.

Skoda Kodiaq: This had always been a car that I wanted to own since it provided the equivalent features and luxury of the big three. I had always liked the looks and of course, the 4x4 capability could come in handy, though it was not a must-have for me. I loved how the car felt and drove. It is truly a wonderful car. However, as soon as my wife tried out the rear seat, I realized how difficult it is to replace an Innova - she felt claustrophobic in the back and also felt it was much less spacious. In addition to that, the fact that no diesel option was available meant that fuel economy would be a concern - an area that the Hycross Hybrid excelled in. Therefore, I had to take Kodiaq off the list.

Hyundai Tucson: I was sceptical about this from the start since I knew it was only a 5 seater and was not a real replacement for an Innova, but since it was a CKD and I had read good things about it, I wanted to try it out. Again, the car felt nice though it was not as fast on the pick-up as I had expected. However, I just could not ignore the fact that after sitting in the captain seats of an Innova, there was no way my family would be happy in the back of the Tucson. And then, when I tried the rear seat myself, I realized that the rear seat was directly over the rear wheel, and hence the ride there was nowhere near the comfort of an Innova. So, Tucson was also struck off the list.

Which model?

I had the 7-seater Innova, and loved it, so that part was settled. I had taken the test drive in the top-end ZXO model and loved everything except the thin profile tyres, which made the ride feel slightly harsher than my current Innova. Also, Toyota was not taking any fresh bookings for ZXO by this time, and though the leasing company told me they could get my booking upgraded to ZXO later, I knew that the wait time would be higher. Therefore I carefully looked at the options and realized two things. Firstly, I did not think I would be able to use the Driver Assist systems much in India. I frequently use rental cars with these features during my official travels to the US, and yes, I do find them very handy on the highways there, but I did not think that the experience would be the same in India. Also, I do not want to get out of habits like checking my blind spots, since I often drive my wife’s 2016 grand i10, which does not have any of this tech. Secondly - I felt the need to use the power switch to incline the ottoman seats to move to the rear bench was not very practical, manually moving them would be much faster. I felt that the higher sidewall with the 17 inches of the VXO was more important since it would improve the ride and reduce anxiety about tire and alloy damage. So that was the model I chose, in the blackish Ageha colour.

Delivery experience

I received the car on 23 Dec 2023, and the experience was wonderful, with everything going smoothly. The car was ready before the promised time, they showed me that all the accessories I had asked for were in place, and gave a quick demo of the main features (which I did not need, thanks to all the information I had already gleaned from the t-bhp thread !).

My daughters have promptly decided that this one is a “he” and have named him “Tony”. So I now have it from the best authorities that the Hycross looks more butch than the old Innova.

Driving impressions so far

Well, the first thing I will say is that all doubts about the upgrade have disappeared! The two cars feel poles apart - for good reason. One was a diesel and the other was petrol. One was zero tech and the other was full of tech (even without driver assistance). The older one used to start with the characteristic big-diesel growl and turbo whine, while this one starts completely silently in electric mode. I have done a couple of 70+ km rides including city and highways, and I can say that driving this car is much more stress-free than my earlier Innova.

The car has an amazing road presence. One interesting thing that I noticed is that some Crysta, XUV and ScorpioN drivers seem to get a bit agitated on seeing this car and make haste to overtake it. Have other owners felt the same? The good part is that I have bought the hybrid for its energy efficiency, and the fact that the display keeps telling me my current and average fuel consumption makes me drive sedately with a light foot, which is what this car needs. Have driven around 500 kms so far, and am already getting an average of around 18 km/l, which I am hoping will improve over time. By the way, could not find any instructions or references to a running-in period. Do I not need to worry about running with these modern engines?

I find that the owner's manual is not very helpful for some of the intricate steps for a few settings. The instrument cluster interface is also not very intuitive. I had some trouble figuring out how to get the TPMS to work and had to resort to some online videos. The wireless Apple carplay system is still a bit confusing when I try to register two phones. The moment I registered the second phone, the wireless Carplay stopped working for the first phone. I will need some more experimentation to figure that out. Also, could not set the “auto lock doors based on position of gear lever” feature even after following all the steps in the manual.

And finally, a couple of photos to end the post:

Here’s Tony, the day after he came home. I have now started turning back for a peek at his profile while walking away, never did that with Lightning.

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