Long Term Report 3

Last month was a little easy for the Vento and we didn’t add much mileage on the odometer. But the holiday season did bring along a couple of outings. And for the first time, my ultra self-righteous family, who would rather be in our family owned cars over even the premium test vehicles, actually preferred the Vento.

It isn’t too difficult to guess why. Among the budget cars, the C-segment is where you will find the ones with best ride and handling balance. Perhaps budget is not the right word, since all of them cost Rs 10 lakh or more. But if we were to set a benchmark it is this segment that we would be looking at and then the Vento stands out with the best package, especially now that the Fiesta isn’t available anymore.

Talking specifically about the ride, the Vento is firmer compared to the Honda City and the Hyundai Verna, but manages to absorb bumps at city speeds cleanly. It is an important aspect in a place like Dombivli, where there are at least a couple for every kilometre. My Dad loves how the cabin remains silent as the car goes over the mess that we are forced to call roads. The Vento has changed their expectations from the C-segment sedan interior. It doesn’t have the space of the fourth generation City, but they think it looks and feels richer despite having less number of features.

The Pune trip for them was a revelation as the Vento masked speeds pretty well, calmly showing figures that usually set panic among my folks. Also, none of them complained about the stiff back, which is generally an issue after long journeys.

All of this worked in my favour brilliantly. Both the Citys that we own are automatic, but if I have to drive a car without the clutch pedal, it would rather be a dual-clutch automatic with seven ratios than the torque convertor or the CVT. Plus the handling… to be fair, it isn’t great either, however like I said ‘the package’ is better than what we otherwise use. I have loved the Vento for this very fact all this while and seems like even my family agrees.

On another front, the Vento developed a mechanical problem. While coasting, every once in a while the car would apply brakes on its own for a fraction of a second at the speeds of around 25kmph. We returned the car and the problem was fixed the same day, apparently with just normal tuning. More on this and other shortcomings of the Vento in the next report.

Pcitures:Kapil Angane