A detailed look at the boot space of Indian cars

I had made a spreadsheet table for my take on the bootspace across segments, so thought of sharing it with the Team-BHP community.

BHPian NickKohl123 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A short background:

I own a VW Polo (Diesel), and WagonR duo (LPG). WagonR is a good city companion, and mainly used by my wife, however, it has completed 14 years and looking at uncertainty around government policies about vehicles older than 15 years, I was giving serious thought about selling it off. After showing the car around in the market, I realized it would sell for less than a new Activa.

Regarding Polo, it’s a different story – Until couple of years back I was working in Pune, and my family was in Nashik. So I wanted a reliable highway traveller which can easily do my weekend trips without taking much toll on my body, and shall be pocket friendly (hence, diesel). Within first 2 years of purchase of Polo, I clocked around ~35000 kms. Then I was relocated to my native with a new job, so Polo was sitting idle at home, since WagonR was mainly doing city running being LPG and it was usually parked outside the home, and Polo being parked in the porch.

Then, we were blessed with a baby last year, and things/perspective changed. I realized my wife would not be using her car much, and the Polo is also sitting idle. I thought of letting go both and instead buy one car, mainly an automatic/AMT with good safety ratings, ISOFIX for child seat (surprisingly even the Polo Highline does not have it), and mainly good luggage space so that I can put a pram/stroller and other luggage, and last but not least, good ride comfort.

I started the hunt with 1 million rupees as a budget, after doing some showroom trips I was perplexed at recent car scenario – I see that boot space is something given least importance to by manufacturers, as well as showroom sales team. Hence, I decided to compare data of the bootspace just for understanding the market, and realize car scenario in India is something like – customer is always getting cheated, Period. (I was in the USA for a few years and I never had to think about obvious features of the cars – like child isofix, or seat belt pre-tensioners, some comfort features like cruise control, steering telescopic adjustments, seat height adjustment, headrest adjustment etc.).

A take on bootspace:

Finally, I felt really frustrated and stopped my car search, decided to manage with what I have a for a while, unless I get a car which is giving me a value for my money. I had made a spreadsheet table for my take on the bootspace across segments, so thought of sharing it with the Team-BHP community.

Spreadsheet Table:

My observations

Entry Hatchback segment

• Renault Kwid is best in class in terms of ride comfort, bootspace, handling. But future of Renault, their service centers is something to worry about!

Compact hatchback

• WagonR is leading – giving most value for money. I own one and l love it’s shear practicality. Even though it is an unsafe tin box with weird design from outside, but ride comfort is not that bad. I mean, before buying WagonR, I hated it the most, but after owning one for more than 8 years, this car is SOMETHING (No wonder it is always in list of best sellers for more than decade).
• New Santro really has a very small boot as compared to the old discontinued Santro even though dimension wise, it is beefier than the older.

Premium Hatchback

• Figo and Grand i10 have the smallest bootspace in this segment
• Baleno is an all rounded car again with largest boot in a segment (after launch of Altroz, it is second largest). Maruti has done it again by giving most value for the money by making sure that there is no value given to human life  But it is working for them in India with “Kitna Deti Hai?” attitude of the Indian mass
• Altroz gives everything – but again Tata has huge burden on their shoulders in terms of attitude of showroom guys, and service issues. It still has not improved. Also after Indica Vista reliability issues, it is still worrisome for normal buyers about long term reliability of Tata cars
• Ignis – gets 80 ltrs smaller bootspace than a cheaper WagonR.
• Swift had issue of low bootspace from the beginning and Maruti did not bother to correct it in the new generation as well. Why would they? Even if they provided none, they would manage to sell it like a hot cake.

Compact sedan

• Amaze has the segment best bootspace. Tigor is behind with 1 Bisleri bottle less to fit in its boot, with a cheaper price tag. Tigor wont give you the reliability of Honda. Those lakhs of rupees extra for the Amaze goes for reliability.
• Ford managed to provide the smallest bootspace in this segment again.

C2 segment (SUV, sedan, Compact SUV, crossover etc.)

This is the most happening segment in Indian car scenario.

• Bootspace take is – Sedans have the best for putting a lot of luggage, also, gives good ride comfort.
• Compact SUVs are not giving anything better than sedans other than ground clearance for around the same price point. A hard truth which is tough to swallow. But, unfortunately, C-SUVs are something all people are drooling over. Even I was in the market looking for Compact SUVs but even in terms of riding comfort, some are good and some are not.
• In the sedan segment, Ciaz has the segment-best bootspace closely followed by the City and then the Vento. Skoda Rapid has the smallest among them.
• Compact SUV – XUV300 offers the smallest boot space and lowest GC in the segment, surprising Brezza has the second smallest. Kia Sonet has the best bootspace followed by TUV300. Ride comfort-wise, Sonet and TUV300 may not be a best ones though!
• In the SUV segment, Duster has the best boot space whereas the Creta & Seltos offers the smallest one.
• Special mention for crossover – One of the good cars from Maruti’s stable but I feel Maruti purposely gave it a cold shoulder. It’s interior does not feel good in terms of convenience features/comfort. Even the cheaper Baleno gets more bells and whistles for its base variant than the top-end of the S-Cross (sarcastly speaking). Also, killing the 1.6L engine is like slow poisoning of this car by its makers.
• Overall Sedans and SUVs are the only proper cars considering boot space – but obviously they are out of reach in terms money for common people. Even my 1 million budget would not help me to get one. These can only be referred as proper cars and one must be ready to shell out 1.5 million bucks.

D1 segment

• A segment of 2 million INR XUV500 offering 93L of bootspace. How impractical for a car which can fit 6 people and has 93L of bootspace.
• MG hector is offering the best in class bootspace at 587 ltrs, followed by the Jeep compass at 438 ltrs.

Here's what BHPian paragsachania had to say on the matter:

On paper, the number of liters looks good. But in reality, what matters a lot is the way the boot is designed, including the loading area, protrusions from the rear suspension, the angle of the tailgate etc. In short, how P-R-A-C-T-I-C-A-L is that boot!

A car may look ugly and you can still manage loading the luggage like a pro stacking them just about perfectly while in a few cars you will realise how the additional boot space is of no help at all.

There is an interesting thread already on this very topic on measuring the boot capacity of cars.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.