To kick-start the series of posts on test-drives on 800rpm, featuring today is Hyundai Avante

Engine: Rating -4

At the heart, Avante's engine is a beauty! 1.6L engine produces a mind-boggling 121 BHP - at a very efficient BHP to engine capacity ratio. The engine is power-packed resulting in fairly good acceleration. To top it all, Avante's engine is extremely refined. It can provide you with the fun of driving at high rpms. At the other end of the spectrum, Avante's engine can run with minimum fuss and very low decibel levels. Get the car to 50-55km/hr in top gear (though automatic), decibel levels go down to minimum.

Avante's engine has a fairly decent lower-end torque, returning decent power and acceleration at lower rpms. This was a major factor in my buying decision. It returns a very impressive 14-15 kmpl on highways and 10-11 in city drive.


Performance: Rating - 4

Moving backwards from the engine, Avante is a great car to steer and drive. Optimum power steering with a decent turning radius makes it a good car for city drive. Braking is excellent with disk brakes on all 4 wheels - most cars have drums at the rear. ABS braking is a good add-on feature. I am not an expert at ABS, so will reserve my comments - in the entire 6000 kms of driving Avante, I think ABS has been activated only once.

Suspension system of Avante is another thing that stands out. While on one hand, it gives a gliding feeling with shockers absorbing almost every bump on the road, on the other, at high-speeds, tyres remain firmly gripped to the road - a very good balance between the two extremes. I have driven the car on a twisting hill-road once and Avante did behave very well on the bends and felt in complete control.

Design and styling: Rating - 5

Avante is a real beauty! Very modern looks with aggressive headlights at the front, a well desinged curve (and not a line as in most cars) at the side and a very impressive rear. To sum it all up, Avante is blessed with a design that I would consider far superior compared to most cars in its class. It's a car that you can take to office and feel "yep, it is refined enough". Later in the evening, the design could easily result in turning and twisting a few heads around! :-)

Interiors:

There is a lot of thinking and effort that has gone in designing and manufacturing Avante. Interiors of the car perfectly reflect this theme - space utilization and convenience has completely exceeded my expectations. There is a place for everything, right from sufficient CDs storage space to special place to store your shades to very well designed seat pockets to sufficient place to store cans and an intelligently placed rear arm rester at the centre of rear seat. The boot can store sufficient luggage for a world tour - all this in a car that still manages to give a compact feel from outside.

Benefits to price ratio:


800rpm verdict:

A series of test drives

This post marks the beginning to a series of test-drives on 800rpm as this blog starts to gain momentum.

I have been following Indian auto industry and test-drives for like ages now. If 800rpm was India focused, it would have made my job a lot easier. In Singapore, it was a bit of a challenge to get understand and evaluate different car models – I had to get myself into the zone of comfort with brands and models I had not even remotely heard of. Building up this abstract database was a challenge but I cherished every moment of this process. From January to March this year, I spent a fair bit of my weekend and late evening time doing research on cars in the bracket that I was looking for. Given how the cars are priced in Singapore and my budgetary constraints, I decided to focus on two segments:

Segment C: Entry level 3-box sedan – essentially ruling out hatch backs as there was very little price difference between the two. Segment C cars were essentially Chevrolet Aveo, Hyundai Verna, Toyota Vios

Segment D: One segment higher than the above featuring Subaru Impreza, Honda City, Chevrolet Optra, Nissan Sunny, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Avante, Nissan Latio

The next few posts would provide more detailed information and assessment of above mentioned cars. Keep idling at 800rpm as we start to throttle a bit more!