Why I chose the Jimny as my second car; Ownership experience so far

I thought of trying an EV as the intended usage was for the city, but decided against it.

BHPian thenewsymbol recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Hi,

This is the first time I am writing about my buying experience and review of a car, please bear with me for any inaccuracies.

Discovering the need for a second car

My first car is Ford Figo Diesel Titanium, it was a great car, didn’t find any other car within my reach as fun as it. It was bought in 2011, and as I moved up in cars, I kept it as my city car.

2 cars later, I got so used to the convenience of Automatic in my Creta DCT, I almost stopped driving Figo except for very occasional joy ride in it for nostalgia. That car is still close to my heart.

Figo started developing problems, it had a steering rack issue and tyres were badly in need of replacement. I neglected it as it was only a joy ride car. Didn’t think I needed a backup car as Creta was 100% reliable and services were done in a day.

This was till the fateful day when a BMW x7 driver reversed into my creta on the way to my office.

At the outset it just looked like a simple fender bender, alas that were not to be so.

Next day when I visited the service center go to know that the headlight holder is also damaged and headlight had a crack, also the clips of the bumper were broken and hence will need a new bumper.

I am looking at a minimum of 4 days even if I do not claim insurance and all the parts are available immediately.

This was a shocker, but no other go had to leave it in the service center due to insurance claim procedure.

This lead to 3 weeks of without car.
I didn’t want to revive figo, as it meant I will have to replace all tyres, repair steering rack etc for a car which had only 1 year left for 15 year completion and it was a manual which is difficult to drive in peak office commute hours.

Decided to use taxis or autos till creta comes back.

This was the event which made me decide to buy a second car as a backup car or city car.

In peak hours you book any cab from any aggregator, most chances are he will ask you for extra payment on top of what is billed by the cab aggregator.

Sometimes the cab or auto driver will deny too. Sometimes it takes quite a while to get a cab.

Public transport is also not convenient in June hot sun in Chennai.

So I deciced to buy another car for city usage and to use as a backup.

Trying EV

I thought to try EV as the intended usage is only city.

I set the budget as sub 10L and wanted a small car for convenience in city driving.
Started with test drive of

MG Comet.
Test drive result :- nope definitely not for me.
I am a heavy guy, the car seats are too small for me, the showroom guy was almost rubbing shoulders with me due to the car being so small.

Tata Tiago

The test drive was decent, this was miles ahead in space compared to Comet. This was real 5 door hatchback which means I can use it to take my family also for short distances. Interior quality is nothing much to write about. Cost cutting is very obvious in Tiago.

Almost decided on it, but then got to know the impracticalities due to not having adequate infrastructure after I tried to set things up for it.

I live in an apartment which already has commercial EV charging facilities. I see no point in buying an EV if I can’t have my own charging point (enquired with association and EB, they cannot give new connections for private parking lot).

Trying ICE cars

Requirements are clear

1. Must be an automatic
2. Must be sub 4m
3. Must have keyless entry
(Don’t want to search for key in my pocket, got used to the convenience of walking upto car, open, sit, drive).
4. Must have push button start
5. Must be safe (as much as possible)
6. Must be 4 cylinder
7. Ventilated seats are good to have
8. Wireless charger are good to have
9. Apple car play is a must
10. Must have automatic climate control (want to set temperature and forget about it, don’t want to fiddle with it just to get right cooling based on climate).

Called V3 Hyundai for a test drive of i10 Asta automatic variant. Took a test drive, the head jerk at the time of gear shift was unmissable.

Can’t think of driving this everyday in peak traffic to and from office. Almost all 45kms of everyday driving will be within 3rd gear. There will be frequent start and stop and there will be head bob/jerk all throughout in AMT.
It felt as though someone pressed the clutch and taking his own sweet time to engage the next gear while I was driving.

None of the cars within 11/12 L had real automatic transmission.

So had to go for 15L or above to get a car with real automatic + all the must haves that I listed above.

Jimnyfying

I was in a confusion about which car to go for. It was frustrating that just for real auto transmission I had to increase my budget to 15L and get no other real mechanical feature for the additional money.

That’s when I noticed in team-bhp forum about huge discounts for Jimny.

I was never an offroad enthusiast, had nothing against it eiether, I just was agnostic to it. But the prospect of getting a real offroader that is small enough such that it can be used for every day city driving is enticing.

Took a test drive of Jimny, was very impressed by the seating position and how it makes you feel. Its a 4 speed TC, but anyday smoother than an AMT.

Jimny has an attraction towards it, its small dimensions along with being able to go anywhere made me lean towards it.

Started reading lot of off roading related contents in team bhp as well as started watching videos related to off roading.

I decided to go for jimny and booked it. Got the delivery of it on 7th of July.

Impressions so far

The foot space for driver is very cramped. For reference check the below picture.

Your left knee will also be touching the dashboard. Refer to the attached picture.

The dashboard is well appointed. I like the way they have buttons for all AC controls. It makes the car look very sophisticated.

The rear window has exposed wiring (for the defogger). This looks ugly and is very prone to damage to the level of being dysfunctional if we are not very careful while accessing the boot.

There is no parcel tray in rear for the boot. But that is ok, if anyone knows a decent parcel tray for jimney please let me know.

The windows are tinted right from factory which makes it a legal tinted window. So far what I have noticed is, this prevents the car from getting too heated even when parked outside in sun for 3 or 4 hours. I wish all cars comes with tinted windows from factory or government allows us to tint them.

The key is not fit for a >15L car. Its simply too plasticky and not even good grade plastic. Its got only 2 buttons in the remote. All doors lock or all doors open, no separate button for boot lock or unlock.

The car makes a small beep every time you lock or unlock it, I do not like that, not sure how to turn that off.

The tachometer and speedometer are rightly placed in my opinion. Left tachometer and right speedometer feels natural for me.

The center multimedia console feels slightly tilted away from the driver. Does anyone else feel so ?

Driving impressions so far

NVH levels are a bit too high (my comparison is with creta). I never felt any difference between driving in paved roads or cement tiled roads that you find in office and some apartments in Creta. But in jimny you can easily feel the difference.

Steering is very hard particularly when you try to do 3 point turns from 0. Is this the case with all offroaders ?

The car is a bit slow, but good enough for the city. It gives no confidence that you can overtake other cars in highway speeds, this is suitable only for a relaxed driving. The car somehow feels heavy and not nimble IMHO, it could be due to slow acceleration and heavy steering. But it feels rugged.

It takes a bit of time to get used to the gear lever. The gear selection is not illuminated, you only see the selected gear in the dashboard console.

I sometimes simply put the car in L or 2 instead of D. I wish they made the gear gated in such a way that to put in 2 or L you have to slot it left or right and then move up or down.
But you get used to it very soon.

After taking a U turn, I feel as though the steering doesn’t return to the straight position soon enough.

You get a feeling of driving a car which can take anything you throw at it.

Overall, its quirks are liveable and getting a true offroad car that can be used daily in city and can occasionally take whole family also is a great value proposition. I like this car very much.

Took it to beach Today.

I have never done off-roading before, waiting for the run in period to be over. After that thinking of taking driving classes for off road. As offroading is a social activity, don’t want to burden others in while joining an off-roading activity.

I will keep this thread posted about my journey with jimny.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.