Chose the VW Taigun over a Kia Seltos: Experience after 1,300 km

At the time of posting this, the car has run around 1300 km, including a recent ~300km trip with light luggage and just two people onboard.

BHPian N1m1z recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I finally dropped a booking for the Taigun GT+ MT in Candy White on 31st of May in my hometown.

For the next 10 days, I had a trip planned with my in-laws. I was to reach my hometown on 11th June and the expected delivery date was given to the showroom as 12th June.

I got the on road price quoted at 18.3L with the BH series registration, including the additional total discounts of around 1.5L (1.04L cash discount + 15k corporate + 20k exchange bonus + 23k insurance discount)

Now, once I reached home the shenanigans began.

On enquiring about the status of the vehicle, we were told that they will be able to make the delivery by 14th; alright, couple of days delay is fine, we thought. We coordinated with the bank and completed the loan formalities in the meanwhile. Now here is where things started turning a bit fishy.

On the 13th, the SA started insisting us to clear the down payment since the delivery date is close, and upon enquiring about a PDI we were slowly told that the car is just now about to ship from the factory(!). To their credit, the SA also shared the VIN number (It translated to Feb 2024 manufacturing, which was fine by me). So, yeah, the car wasn't even in the dealer's possession yet and they started asking for the complete payment. On the other hand, our bank had the condition that they'll disburse the loan amount only after we've made the rest of the payment and the dealer shares the receipt for it; and the dealer management was not ready to give any sort of receipt until the entire payment was completed. This caused a deadlock situation for all of us. The bank rep told us that other dealers would generally share a temp receipt with the bank on trust basis regularly, but unfortunately this wasn't the case here. Since the delays until now had not inspired confidence in the dealer's methods, I and dad were now reluctant in giving the entire payment without even seeing the car once. There could be manufacturing issues with the car, or it could even get damaged in shipping, for what it's worth. The bank guy also mentioned that the dealer caused issues the last time they financed a VW, but we thought it's a new dealer and they would've learnt the norm by now - we were clearly wrong.

Anyways, since I was out of options and had pretty much made up my mind for the Taigun, I crossed my fingers and paid about 40% of the due amount to comfort them that I actually intended to take delivery of the car, and they'll not have dead stock in their hands (dad being in the same line of work, we kind of sided with the point without them even mentioning, that the top-end stuff doesn't really fly off the shelves in smaller cities where people often prefer middle-of-the-road options). Turns out it was still a mistake. We were now locked into the dealer and the car, unless I was ready to go fight and argue with them to get my hard earned savings back in case anything turned out to be wrong with the car which, mind you, WASN'T EVEN NEAR U.P. at that time .

I prefer to be cautious with my finances, and this decision seemed too impulsive for my comfort in retrospective.

Going through all this, dad was ultimately furious. Being in the same field for so many years, he gave an earful to the SA about their practices in dealing with their customers. Had they had doubts despite us paying the full booking amount well in advance, they could atleast have been clear about it.

Once I had done the payment, the next afternoon we were told that the vehicle had finally shipped. God! However, the timing of all this also sounded like the dealer was waiting for our funds to pay the company for the stock, and since the SA had mentioned earlier they had only sold about 10 odd cars in the 3 months of their existence, all this did not sit well with dad at all. He finally started questioning my decision to go with VW and started pushing me to go for a more 'dependable' and 'established' brand instead. I somehow managed to stand my ground, but if I had plans to live in my hometown, I would have dropped my plans then and there, and would have gone for a KIA or Hyundai instead. I knew I didn't have to deal with these morons after buying the car, and that is what gave me the strength to hold on. God knows how much delays they'll cause for service and spare parts if this was the situation in buying a new car off of them.

I hope I've made the right decision here. Only time will tell though!

Anyway, we were told the car had shipped from Pune, and it will take 3 to 4 and "at most 5 days" to get here. Based on this, 18th was decided as the preferred day of delivery since it was my sister's birthday and is also my birth date. SA convinced us that he will make the delivery this time.

Then on 16th, SA informed us that the truck had reached MP and should be there on time. Now, on the same evening, SA dropped a message saying that they are not able to reach the truck driver but they will try their best to make the delivery. 17th came and apparently there was still no contact with the driver. He had apparently gone AWOL for Eid. This time, the SA visited our home along with his supervisor and a box of sweets trying to calm us down and convince us not to change our decision (dad had given them several earfuls beforehand, and even threatened them to cancel the purchase by now) they also promised to make the delivery by 19th for sure. Alright, we thought again, it's a 7 hour drive according to Google, so it'll reach tomorrow for sure.Next contact with the truck driver happened on the 18th evening, when we were told that he was still in the same place in MP.

Then, the next day, we found out that the driver, in his infinite wisdom, instead of taking the shorter, direct route, entered UP via Jhansi, nearly doubling the ETA. Again, to the SA's credit, he had even shared the driver's contact with us and we did confirm that he had indeed reached Jhansi.
Another day then it was of waiting..

Incidentally, the next morning, dad got a call from the driver at 5AM, with the driver mistaking dad as the Skoda representative from his call logs, telling that he had dropped off the VW load and asking for directions to their stockyard (apparently Skoda and VW cars ship together too.. )

Finally! My GT was in town!

The SA shared pictures of my car from the stockyard at 7:30 AM and then of it being washed around 9:30. We reached the dealership around 12:30 and the car was parked upfront, in prisine condition albeit with some water stains. Those were taken care of swiftly and without mentioning. It was pretty much smooth sailing then on, except the fact that we managed to have them throw in a dual channel Blaupunkt dashcam worth 10k for free along with the other (paid) accessories as a consolation for all the troubles and frustration caused. I got the base accessories pack which included -

1. 3D mats
2. Magnetic rear sun Blinds
3. Mud flaps
4. Elastic net for the boot
5. USB charger and type c cable (Blaupunkt)
6. Garbage bin (bag) with extra linings
7. Pair of VW branded cushions

Despite the fact that the loan amount was to be disbursed to them only the next day, Dad, being pissed off and cautious, coincidentally managed to get a hold of the owner himself and convince him and the accounts guy to release the car the same day. Well, all the delay was clearly because of them and nowhere because of us, right? Had they managed their orders with the company better, they would have been paid much earlier. We were ready to pay up, they just failed to earn our trust in time.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, I guess?

I must say, in all this, the SA (and the other staff) did go above and beyond wherever they could, but the dealer management - they need to learn a thing or two about their processes if they want to survive long term in their new venture. I'd bet dad gave the owner some 'friendly advice' on this in his office, but he surely isn't going to accept!

Signing off with some pictures from the day of delivery. Also, the 1000km update is coming really soon!

Getting ready for the unveil

One with the family.

Baby's finally home! I love the blacked out roof.

My thoughts after a 900km road trip

Since the car got delivered, after visiting a temple I got busy with my work and in the meanwhile made plans to visit the Dudhwa National park the following weekend, as news had come that they had extended the closing date by 10 days.

Mind you, by the end it was no regular road trip and turned out to be a true test of the car; we had full passengers onboard, with the boot chock full of luggage and it was in the peak summer heat and involved broken roads, parts of expressways and a bunch of narrow twisty rural roads as well.

The Average FE according to the MID for this entire trip was around 11.4kmpl.

Here are my observations about the car after 1000km of running -

The Good

• Amazing performance. It can overtake rapidly at any speed, and pretty much in any gear out on the highway. Mind you, this was tested with 5 healthy people on board and a packed boot of luggage.
• Suspension is just perfect. Out of the 5 onboard, 3 generally suffer from motion sickness. None of them felt uneasy throughout the long trip, which even involved driving on a single lane highway that is under construction, hence also involved hard braking and off-roading occasionally. Also in the city, it absorbs potholes with minimal issues.
• Speaking of braking - Brakes are perfectly tuned and offer awesome stopping power.
• Ventilated seats are a boon in the scorching heat to cool down quickly
• Boot space looks smaller but can gobble up luggage like anything, if you know how to fit things.
• Build quality is great, especially coming from Tata and Maruti. Also miles ahead of Hyundai IMO.
• The ICE sounds great with a very balanced output. I recently travelled in my relative's Alcazar with the Bose sound system, and I found that to be way too bassy by default.
• The looks - I can't help but smile every time I see it. I love 'sleeper' cars and this fits the bill perfectly. There are no tacky bits, just subtle hints like the red brake callipers.

The Bad

• The rear seat space. People in the rear felt crammed.
• The shape of the rear seat is great if there are 4 people on board, but when there are five, the sides of the seats start digging into your back and the middle passenger is miserable due to the big hump in the seat.
• The Air conditioner - This was the major pain point in the heat for all of us. The 'Auto' mode is practically useless in this case. Our Swift's CC is always kept in Auto with the temp set to 25 and cools rapidly and keeps us comfortable. In the Taigun, I needed to keep it at 23 degrees and keep fiddling with the fan speed to maintain cooling. Also, for some strange reason, turning on the auto mode also turns on the fresh air mode which breaks the cooling and tends to bring in occasional odours from outside.
• Adding insult to injury, the AC touch controls are garbage. Even hovering the fingers near it seemed to change settings while shifting gears, often turning off the AC or dropping it back into Auto mode causing a rain of complaints from everyone. I swear sometimes I didnt even go close to the controls but found settings changed, but I'll give it the benefit of doubt.
• There is no RPM display in all but one view mode in the cluster even for the manual variant. I had to stay in the RPM view for the most part in the city since I'm still new to the car, and hence missed out on the driving info screen. I have seen some shots of cars with a tacho on the top of the screen which would be great. Is it something we can enable manually, or is it done only via coding? I couldn't find the option yet.
• The car is extremely sensitive to the style of driving, the load and the conditions. If we turn on the current FE display, I see at half throttle even in the 6th gear drops the figure to single digits. I guess it is my first experience with a turbo petrol.

The 'Meh'

• Coming from the Swift, the gear shifts and the clutch felt 'meh', it isn't bad at all, but I'm just used to better, I guess? The clutch felt harder in comparison. Gearshifts got stuck a couple times I did not slot in perfectly, but that only happened initially and it feels smoother now (I could have gotten used to it)
• The fuel efficiency

Despite the above cons, I'm not worried. Let me explain.

For 1 and 2, we will only be two people mostly, with some friends occasionally hitching a ride. An occupancy of 5 should be rare.

For 3 and 4, Bangalore is nowhere close to the heat in UP. Hoping the AC will work better here. If not, I'll take this up with the service center.

The 5th point is what I'm still looking for a solution for.

The 6th one needs a change on my end, I guess.

At the time of posting this, the car has run around 1300 km, including a recent ~300km trip with light luggage and just two people onboard. I managed a FE of 16kmpl this time, as it was primarily on 6-lane highways and I drove at, or just above, 100kmph for the most part of it, with gradual acceleration (mostly ).

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.