ESSENTIALS FOR CHOOSING A CAR

There are many things that a customer should think about before he can purchase a NEW CAR. Of course, there are the usual information that you can get from a magazine or from a salesman. However, there are many things which are not told to you by them and which might be essential for your comfortable driving experience. You are usually bombarded with the huge mileage and great pick-up due to high horsepower of their particular company car, the amount of space, the superb handling and comfort of the car model, and also the easily availability of the spare-parts and service centres. 

For Car Users in city, a few specifications that are not told to you by salesmen will help in many ways.

(i)  It is important that the maximum torque is at the least engine rpm (revolutions per minute) to minimize the frequency of gear changes. The lower the rpm, the engine will be able to pull the car e.g. cars with max torque at 3,000 rpm will be able to drive comfortably at 4th or even 5th gear at 30kmph whereas car with max torque at 4,000 rpm will not be able to drive at all in 5th gear and will have trouble in 4th gear at 30kmph.

(ii) Another important matter is the turning radius/diameter, cars with less than 9.8 metre diameter and 4.9 metre radius turning distance will enable you to park easily, more so especially cars with less than 9.4 m turning diameter. Cars with more than 9.8 metres turning diameter is very difficult to park in small spaces.

(iii) Another neglected aspect is the height of the car. If the driving position is quite high, then there is more visibility and driving is much more easy especially for short persons or ladies.

Many people advise you to buy a Car from an establish Company like Maruti, Hyundai or Tata. This is important for only buyers buying Old Cars. It is not so important if you happen to buy a brand new car and you drive very less.  If you happen to drive around 500 km per month and around 6,000 per annum, it will translate to around 25-30,000 km in around 5 years.  Most of the new cars should not give any problems for a majority of the Car users for 5 years as they are built well and solidly. So, you will really need the real maintenance and replacement of parts after this period when the wear and tear becomes quite a lot. This means that it is after 5 years of use that established companies like Maruti, Santro and Tata could have advantage over others. However, it is expected that new players like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford and Chevrolet will have enough number of dealers & service centres by 2015.

I think that this much information is enough for the time-being. More updates will follow.