I am real confused as to which car to buy. I have been out of India scene for too long. First some background. I have (my first car) Petra 1.6 petrol, which I had bought in 2005. Since then we had been mostly living abroad. The car has just done 18K so far and is always parked (cover parking) in my home town. Every year I get it serviced and my FIL drives it once a month to keep it in running shape. The car needs re-painitng for sure. Even interior needs a good polishing.
Now we are moving back to Bangalore for good and we would need 2 car for sure. One for me and one for my wife just to get around. I may not be able to bring Petra immediately as it will be good 4-5 months before I will go to hometown and arrange it to be transported back to Bangalore. Hence my options which also revolve around Petra are:
1. If Petra will last lets say another 5 years for me then I would like to go for a family car between Xylo and Innova. I am not sure however if people go to offices in one of these cars. What do you guys say? Will it look odd? Why I am asking this is because first Petra is not immediately accessible and secondly when it comes to Bangalore I don’t want my wife to drive big car like Innova etc when I am not around. Hope she doesn’t read this :-). So my question if this is the right approach? If yes then which family car to buy? Xylo or Innova or wait for sometime if any new option is going to arrive soon.
2. Buy a decent hatchback. Use it for weekend travel too. Re-furbish the Petra and bring it to Bangalore and drive that to office. In that case I would like to use the newer car for all my weekend and holiday travelling to places like Kerala, Goa, Hyderabad, Pune & Mumbai etc. I don’t want to spend more than 6 lacs on a hatchback and safety is paramount. My wife should also not feel that she got a raw deal as she will have the hatchback to call her own. Again is this a right approach. Which Hatchback? We are family of 4 with
occasional addition of a 5th but a real slim SIL.
3. Buy another Sedan like Fiesta SXI and drive that to office and expedite Petra’s transfer to Bangalore. Fiesta can be used for all outstation travelling. But then we will end up having 2 Sedans. Since Petra was our first car, it will never be sold off. Somehow at the back of my mind it is etched that only Sedan or bigger car can be used for extensive vacation travel. What do you guys say to this? Which Sedan? I can spend 7- 7.5 lacs on a Sedan.
Just to let you know, I have never even seen a Xylo or rode an Innova or Fiesta or ever drove a small hatchback before. However most important is worry free vehicle and customer friendly car manufacturer. FE and cost of spares are not important as long as:
– Spares are available for a long time
– I don’t have to take the car to service centre every week as won’t have any time.
Also as a stop gap till Petra is not with us and otherwise too, I want to own the Bullet Classic/Thunderbolt. Do you guys use that to commute to office? Will that be a laughing stock? I will be commuting to Electronic city from Sarjapur road everyday and working late hours too.
Where can I find the good deals in Bangalore for cars? What impact the budget is going to make this time? Are there generally good deals around budget time. I will be there in Bangalore from Feb 25 onwards.
The cars I have ever drove in my life are Petra, BMW 3 series AT & Toyota Avensis AT.
Most importantly, the new job will be paying a substantial portion as car lease or car allowance, have to check. How to best use that in terms of tax saving? What do you guys do?
Mods please let this post go.
Cheers
Manu