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My Hyundai Venue 1.0 Turbo IMT: Buying & initial experience

1st February 2022, 12:02 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

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The fuel efficiency on the highway with the cruise control engaged comes out to be 18-19 km/l.

BHPian cool_cruiser_vj recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Brief background

Living in Chennai with my wife, 8-year-old daughter and 80-year-old father. Work in IT.

Cars owned previously

Maruti Zen (2004)
Accent CRDI (2007 - used)
Ritz Petrol (2011)

Note: I got a used Accent since I stayed in Pune temporarily for about 2-3 years only. I loved all my cars, they were all "gems" in their own ways.

Wanted an upgrade, and started a car search in Oct/Nov 2020.

Requirements

Budget - around 11 lakhs.
Stay contemporary (didn't want to be left behind).
Did not prefer a sedan (I'm 5'11'', big frame. sedans are generally low seating, limited headroom and generally non-compact for the city).
Don't drive a lot; but whenever I drive, it is definitely not sedate. Preferred metro, shared rides for office commutes as much as possible in the pre-covid era. Now it is WFH and is likely to be a hybrid (50% WFH) going forward too. Occasional highway trips will definitely be there.
Automatic.
Petrol over Diesel.
Rear AC Vents.
Sunroof (the only ask from my kid).

Choices

Actually, based on the requirements, I landed directly in the C-SUV segment. I'm not sure if I had any other option. Of course, could have gone for lower-order mid-size SUVs (Creta, Seltos etc.), but automatic options were priced higher (at least 4L plus) & of course missing on lots of features.

So the C-SUV options were:

Brezza - Felt a little dated, again petrol automatic was not great, no sun-roof, etc. Definitely not cheap either.
Nexon - Again reviews on petrol automatic was not great. Not cheap either. EV was over my budget. Did not justify my driving pattern and moreover owning a single car (an EV) at this point was not a good option. I feel that there are a lot more quick progressions at all fronts (charging infra, battery sizing and performance etc.) likely in 2-3 years.
Magnite - Good car which ticked all my requirements, except sunroof. Relatively cheaper. In fact, the only car in this segment with a 360 camera option I think. Couldn't discount the sunroof and wasn't sure about Nissan.
Sonet - All ticks, but the top end petrol automatic was about 1.4L expensive than it is Hyundai cousin. Of course, there were additional features/aspects like Bose sound system, marginally bigger boot, better GC (205mm Vs 195), "leather" ventilated seats, rear window curtain, ambient lights, bigger infotainment unit, front sensor etc. to justify the additional cost. But I still didn't feel justified given that it is the same engine. Moreover, I had already crossed my planned budget 11L. Did not want to increase it further. Also, most importantly, I liked the Venue's looks more than Sonet's. Seltos is definitely good looking than Sonet (Tiger Vs Cat, subdued in my opinion). However, I do agree that the Venue's rear is a little bummer.
Venue - I think this was the only option I had, given that there was something or the other that personally didn't work for me in all the other options. Again, there were multiple engine and gearbox options to choose from here, over and above the trims which was the next decision point.

Chosen One - Venue

With respect to the trims, I decided to go for the top-end whichever engine and gear option I chose, because I have only been buying mid variants till now. Wanted to break this.

1.2 NA Petrol didn't sound interesting, since I felt that it wasn't the engine for CSUV. My Ritz had 1.2 NA. Contemplated on the diesel instead of turbo petrol for a while because I heard that 1.5 diesel was VFM given the Venue was compact. But there was no automatic (Sonet had it though) and hence had to drop it off.

So I was left with DCT Vs iMT now. Top-end Sport trim was the choice. Again, I was reading about DCT and iMT, both were new to me. Friends and cousins suggested DCT since it was a fully automatic, no-nonsense type. iMT was something that I wanted to try since I will have the option to downshift whenever I want to and can enjoy the best of both worlds (no clutch driving along with a 6-speed gear). The primary reason for me preferring automatic is to be easy on the leg. iMT serves this purpose. Otherwise, I enjoy shifting gears. Also, I thought I will have fewer maintenance issues and stay away from the risk of DCT reliability. I also thought that iMT will give me better control over turbo lag, fuel efficiency over DCT. I think I was wrong here, i.e. the lag & efficiency was probably managed well by DCT.

Anyways, the higher cost of DCT (50k more than iMT) with loss of features like 60:40 split, airbags (only 2 and not 6) even in the top trim made me go for iMT.

Booking - 1.0 Turbo GDI iMT Sport SX (O) Dual Tone

I went with Kun and informed them it was a corporate booking. The salesperson was prompt and he had already connected to my corporate lease providers. I think this helped a bit to get my car earlier, which I realized later. Booked on April 4th, was told about 45 days as it was kind of "order to make". I enquired with a few other dealers outside Chennai also through my corporate team. They also sang the same song. Really? Order to Make? I wanted Black, No Black color in Venue. There were only 2 colors in sport trim - white and titan grey. Picked grey. Sport trim was 15k more than the top end with some small-time bells/whistles like red accents on the door lower sides, roof rails, brake calipers, upholstery stitches, ac vent adjuster, control knobs and chrome metal finish for pedals. At least this broke the boredom. I felt that the red accents worked well than chrome inserts personally.

The sales guy said that he needs to confirm if Hyundai accepts order for these sport trim variants, as they were very few buyers and there was information that sport trims will be discontinued. This took a while to confirm I guess (~15 days). I suspect that he placed the booking after this confirmation. I also reckon that they were some kind of "rationing" on no. of orders placed for a car from each dealer at that point in time. Not sure.

2nd wave hit, lockdown started.

Delivery

Despite the peak lockdown and confusion around the availability of sport trims, my car reached the yard on 7th June. Not bad I thought. But showrooms opened only after the 2nd week of June. Took Delivery on 19th June.

Cost:

Ex-Showroom 11.38L
Meagre Discount of 15K (This was almost offset by 10K increase in price between booking and delivery)
Insurance (not through dealer) - 29K
On-Road Cost - 13.3L

Dealer giveaway:

Under Chasis coating (certificate provided)
Door scratch guard
Window rain visor (?)

Delivery experience was fine. There was a problem with blue link registration alone, got rectified in a week. Looks like the corporate leasing guys pushed the dealer a bit into placing the order quickly. But in the end, I didn't purchase through the corporate lease.

Post delivery

Aftermarket accessories:

Full floor mats - settled for a cheap one (3K)
3M CR70 for windshield
Rest all tinted with Garware (again cost-cutting)
Now comes the big one, Ceramic coating - Done at Ceramic Pro 45K (understand that it only protects the paint to a certain extent from sun, water, dirt, stains etc.). 45 k includes maintenance for 5 years. We can visit the store every 10-12 months to redo the coating based on wear and tear i.e. optimal replenish. Not sure if it is worth though.

Driving & other experiences

Done 5K kms till now. Primarily 4-5 highway trips, includes Ghats; 2 major ones ~1200 kms each.

Chennai - Bangalore - Mysore - Gudalur - Ooty - Kotagiri - Mettupalayam - Salem - Chennai
Chennai - Madurai - Thekkady - Dindugul - Chennai
Other 3 trips were 150, 275 & 700 kms respectively (these were done prior to major ones)

Good things

Gear shifts are smooth. I mean auto clutch i.e. iMT works really fine and well.
Adequate power & pull is there (been on steep mud paths uphill to certain resorts with full load).
Cruise worked well for me. If you change gears or press the accelerator, the cruise stays intact. Cruise gets turned off only when you apply brakes. Again one press, it can be switched on again.
I call this "pseudo" paddle-shift: You can increase/decrease the cruise speed by pressing the cruise lever on the steering up/down. It goes up/down by 1 kmph for every press. And on a long press up/down, it goes up/down to the closest ten. For e.g., if the cruising speed is at 67kmph, one long down press sets it at 60kmph. One more long-press down gets it to 50 kmph and so on and so forth. On the other hand, at 67kmph, one long up press sets it at 70kmph and another to 80kmph and so on. Not sure if the latter feature was there in all cars.
Highway fuel efficiency: Cruise mode gives you max up to 18-19 kmpl (tank fill method). Non-cruise mode, you tend to do meddle with throttle and/or indulge in surge drives mostly. In this case, it is about 14-15kmpl. My speeds were averaging 80-90kmph only.
AC works fine, rear ac vents seem ok. You can feel rear ac vent airflow only when you turn on Auto Climate control mode (yet to see the real summer I guess).
Storage is fairly good. Boot is adequate for 4-5 people for a 5-day trip i.e. it can accommodate 5-6 cabin suitcases easily along with 1-2 smaller additional bags.
4 adults + 1 child in the rear middle. leg and headroom are adequate for this capacity.
Visibility (Bonnet and/or otherwise) is good.
Rear Camera has guidance and is effective.
Braking, Ride quality seems ok to me. I have used 36 for highways and 34 for the city. Higher for highways since it is invariably full load.
Low-speed ride is good. High speed is also fine, but when we hit real deep breaks in the road, there is a "thud". Otherwise, it feels stable.
R16 alloys 215/60 Ceat secure drive, ok for now I suppose. Spare is non-alloy and R15 with Apollo.
No niggles, problems or moving parts or strange sounds as yet.
1st Service is more of an eyewash than water wash, nothing significant done during the service unless you report specific issues.
Hill Assist, in recent times, not sure if it works correctly. Need to check again.

Not so good things

Cushioning of seats are ok. But my father complains that seat is little hard to sit through for long journeys. I think the foam is on the lower side. I don't know if seat covers can help here. Moreover, I can't put in seat covers unless and until I know it will not hinder with the airbags, since it has 6 airbags. Any feedback?
Upholstery could have been full "leather", instead of fabric + leather mix, given that it is top end.
Front sensors could have been provided.
Left armrest for the driver is not sliding. The position can be a little forward for better utility. I added an armrest cushion, it helped only a bit though. Otherwise, driver ergonomics seems fine.
Audio system & quality is just ok. For e.g., Average Bass setting levels end up in a bit of door jarring. It is felt when you keep your hand over the hand rest on the door. Thoughts? Is this audio equipment or a damping issue?
Everything gets switched off if you switch off the engine. We have to push it again to switch on the infotainment, and other accessories in 2 step process.
Wind/Road noise seeps mildly in at 110kmph+
City Fuel Efficiency: I haven't checked it precisely, since it was very limited driving. But going by my guess it is anywhere between 10-11 kmpl. But this fact holds good for sure: Turbos are absolutely hypersensitive to throttle resulting in reducing the fuel efficiency drastically.
Foot mat clips are only for the driver-side.
ORVMs won't close automatically while locking, although there is a 1 touch button provided inside for closing it manually.
Horns are fine for the city. It can be a little better for highways. But access to the horn is not easy, you almost have to lift your hands for pressing them. Easy access through thumb and a soft press would have helped here.
Maybe a red accent in the rear (it does not have any sport touch now), probably across the boot lip or on the rear roofline, could have been done to make it look a little interesting.

Overall, I'm quite happy with my purchase.