my Baleno

I am so glad I took this decision 4 years ago.

2009-06-10T14:21:00.002+05:30

There have been times when I would go to the extent of regretting buying a sedan, where
a small car would have perfectly suited my requirements. But as I drove home from work yesterday evening after a lousy day, I was glad I bought this car.

The sheer pleasure of driving it, the way it responds to accelerator inputs and the way the forward-surge presses you back against the seat is something to be relished. Yeah, I know
I don't drive a Ferrari, but then given the road-conditions we have here, I am sure there
isn't much you can do with even a Ferrari.

And maybe to compensate for the lousy day, there was no traffic at all between Spic and
Guindy which gave me a few kms of free road to unleash the potential of my car. And the
curvy climb up the grade-separator was as always a pleasure.

I am glad I listened to my instincts and bought this car. I am even more glad that I did
not go the mind way by worrying about FE and getting myself something like the M800,
which while it still would take me home, would be lacking in driving pleasure.

Thank God for small blessings.

Here's someone who dreams cars. And I thought loving and living cars was great.

2009-04-15T16:00:00.002+05:30

11PM - Tue, 14/Apr/09 :
Have just returned from a busy day at work and had a quick dinner with my wife. My son
stayed up till 10PM waiting for me, but slept off after that. For a kid who hits the bed at 8PM
or so, 10PM is already too late. Had planned to be home atleast by 9PM so that I could spend some time with him, but as usual some last minute stuff needed to be attended to.

Anyway, since it is April and with Chennai in summer mode, it is sultry even at night. So I
decide to take a quick shower. Halfway through the shower, the power goes off & the whole neighborhood is plunged in darkness. Inspite of its faults, one good thing about Chennai was
the reliability as far as electric supply was concerned. In my 2 decades here, power failures
have been very rare and even in those rare instances, it is restored quickly.

This is so unlike Kerala, where apart from the announced load-shedding of 30 minutes daily, there are atleast 2-3 suprise power cuts, lasting for a few hours. Ofcourse in the last year or
so, even Tamilnadu has been facing power shortage and they have had to resort to planned
load-shedding in Chennai & other places.

My wife was reading the newspaper when the lights went off. I verbally guide her to where
my phone is so that it's display can be used as a light source for her to get candles & matches.
As I finish my shower and get to the bedroom, she already has a candle lighted. I know that
in a few minutes my son will get uncomfortable with the cool air of the airconditioner being absent and start crying. So, I fan him with a magazine.

I assure my wife that power will come back soon, but even after 10 minutes there is no sign
of it returning. Every few minutes I fan my son with the magazine so that his sleep is not interrupted, with my wife asking,"How long will you keep fanning him ? All night?"

When I almost gave up hope of a good sleep that night, the power comes on. As I tell my wife, "See, this is because of good-hearted people like me..", the power goes off again, as if proving
me wrong about me being good-hearted. My wife has the last laugh here.

Again, it is back to sultry weather and to add to the discomfort, some mosquitoes are buzzing around. WhileI cannot sleep with mosquitoes around (I need to kill them all before I hit the
bed), my wife has no such issues and she is soon asleep. I lay awake thinking of various things - my Uncle who passed away yesterday, the void his loss would leave for his family, some stuff
at work etc - and in between remember to fan my son.

My thoughts are broken by my son stirring in his sleep. He turns over in his sleep and talks in his sleep.I have heard him talking in his sleep earlier also, but could not make out the words. Now that his speech has improved a lot & become more legible, I can hear the 2 words clearly. He says "Baleno car".

In the evening, I had talked to him over the phone and told him that after I return from work, we will go out in the Baleno. I wonder if he was dreaming about this in his sleep and thus his uttering these 2 words. Now this truly is a car mad kid. I know that most boys are from a very young age crazy about cars & bikes, just like baby girls are crazy about dolls. But this guy is on
a different plane altogether. If I were to compile all the words he says in a day & rate them on which he says most, I think the list would look something like "Baleno car", "Tittu car", apart from the other most used ones like 'biju pappa' & 'neena mummi'. 'Tittu' is how he pronounces "Swift' and on the road, he can identify a Swift when he sees one. Ofcourse, when it comes to Baleno, any car with a boot is a Baleno as far as he is concerned.

At my auto-forum, we have a set of stickers available to be stuck on our cars and one of the stickers has the tagline "Love cars. Live cars". But here is someone who even dreams of cars.
I hope I am able to make it early home today evening, so that I can take him out for a drive
in his "Baleno car".

What's with these newspaper car advisors ? Goof-up by even 'The Hindu' is shocking!!!

2009-02-19T20:13:00.001+05:30

Among the English dailies in India, 'The Hindu' is considered top-notch in terms of quality, content, error-free reporting, lack of bias, newsprint, lack of Page3 content etc. In my
opinion, it is the best English newspaper in India and this is after sampling various dailies available in different parts of India.

So every Wednesday, I do not miss the 'Metro Plus' supplement which has 2 pages dedicated
to cars - new models, vintage and ofcourse the 'Virtual Mechanic' which can be called the print equivalent of www.team-bhp.com's (my favourite car forum) "What car?" section.

Yesterday's 'Virtual Mechanic' had this query by a reader (D. Adarsh) :

Q : Can you tell me about the brands that are likely to be launched within the next year, in
the same segment as the Maruti SX4? What about the VW Jetta? Will it be competitively
priced like the Fabia Diesel? Are there any other VW brands likely to be launched in the
Rs. 6-9 lakh range? Will Honda come up with a diesel version of either the new City or the
Jazz?

And the answer was :

A : The next six months will be quite exciting in terms of launches. The new Toyota Corolla is expected in September 2009 & will be priced between Rs.10-12 lakh & the Fiat Linea
is expected at the same time and will be priced between Rs.7-9 lakh. The VW Jetta is expected in July 2009 and should cost between Rs.13-16 lakh and will come with a petrol
and diesel engine. There is no model from VW expected in the Rs. 6-9 lakh range this year,
but the Polo will come out next year. There are no plans for diesel engines for either the Jazz
or the new City.

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I first checked the date of the newspaper, thinking that maybe I am reading an old paper. But no, it was a supplement dated 18-Feb-09.

The Corolla Altis has been launched only few months ago. So I wondered how a new one is expected just 7 months later. I ignored this bit thinking that the Altis was anyway a minor makeover. So maybe Toyota will bring in a fresh new Corolla, though I don't remember
reading anything about this on tbhp.

But then he goes on to say that the Linea is also expected in Sep 2009. We have reams of
pages on team-bhp detailing Linea test-drives on the forum and people have booked it and
some have even brought it home. And these guys are telling the reader to wait for it.

And then the article says that VW Jetta is expected in July 2009. I had read about the Jetta being already in the market, but since I am not much interested in 10lakh+ cars, I was not
too sure. So checked the VW site online and yes, they have the Jetta on sale.

I just can't believe that 'The Hindu' had this on their pages.

P.S. : Here is the full article.

The Japanese car scene

2008-02-03T15:00:00.001+05:30

I know I haven't been here in a long time. Got busy with work, travel etc and was also
devoting whatever time remained, to my other regular blog.

Anyway, I am doing this post on the car-forum that I am a member of, about the Japanese
car scene, with loads of photos. Since duplicating it here would be doing the same thing twice
over and time being at a premium, I will just post the link here for anyone that is interested.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/35038-dodging-bullets-drooling-over-ferraris-japan.html

Happy reading and viewing.

A day at the Race Track - Track Day March 2007

2007-03-28T10:52:00.000+05:30

This was one chance that I did not want to miss. Especially since I missed the last track day
organised by the Madras Motor Sports Club (MMSC) in 2006 at the track at Irungattukottai,
just opposite the Hyundai factory and few kms before Sri Perumbudur.
It is like 30kms from Nungambakkam, just to give you an idea of the distance.

Track Days are events organised by the club to enable laymen like us to have a chance to
experience driving on a real track without any traffic signals or pedestrians playing spoilsport.
Drivers have two options - drive their own street cars on track OR rent cars (race Esteems or
Formula Indian Single Seater Maruti Engine (FISSME) or Formula LG Swifts or Formula LG Hyundais).

So, was eagerly waiting for the 24/25th March'07 weekend. Reached the track around 8:30AM.
Registered for a session (5 laps on the short loop) on the Formula LG Swift by paying 700 as
car rental and 300 for track rental. Well worth every second of the 10-15 minutes spent on the track.

First to go on track were the superbikes (usually 600cc and above).
All brands were there - Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha etc.

Then was a Formula car session. These cars look like the Formula cars we see in F1, but fitted
with either Maruti800 engines or Maruti Swift engines or Hyundai Accent engines. In racing/dragging,
the power to weight ratio is a big thing. A Swift engine that makes 87bhp in a normal Swift weighing
thousand kg has a ratio of 0.087. Now put the same engine in a Formula chassis that weighs just
200kg and see the ratio zoom up to 0.435.

What this means is that the car is now super quick and needs expertise to be controlled. Drive it
like you drive your street Swift and you would end up in the grass or the barriers around the track
or worse could get into a bad spin on track.

Getting into the Formula Swift was tough even for me who is just 67kgs and average frame.
The C.G. is so low that you are almost sitting on the ground with your legs parallel to the ground.
The steering is pretty tight (intentional I guess) and the gears are not as smooth as your normal car.
Since I was the first to be flagged off, I got 2 laps more than the 5 that I had paid for.

On the straight section it is fun - the car roars and speeds like mad. However, could not take my
eyes off the track to the speedometer to check the max speed. The curves are tricky if you do not
take them properly. A guy spun around in front of me at a curve and I could avoid hitting him only
because I had reduced speed while entering the curve.

There were atleast 3 Porsche cars, a Nissan Skyline GT R (700 bhp), a Mitsubishi Evo, to mention
the big names. Ofcourse there were guys racing their normal cars too (Baleno, Honda city, Ford Ikon,
Santro, Palio, Lancer etc etc).

There was also a dirt track where you could drive Polaris All Terrain Vehicles (ATV) for 5 minutes for Rs300.

Pictures :
1) The awesome Porsche Carrera 911 (this car & driver combo beat the pants of all the rest on track).

2) The Nissan Skyline GT R & the Mitsubishi Evo

3) Superbikes

4) The Polaris ATV

5) Me getting ready to roll

Maybe at the next track day, I will take my Black Beauty Baleno on track.

Baleno prices at launch in 1999 - finally found

2006-12-11T14:43:00.000+05:30

Had been searching high and low for the prices at which the Baleno was initially
launched in India in 1999.

Thanks to the WorldWideWeb and Google, I finally came across this link http://www.domain-b.com/automotive/models/maruti/maruti_baleno.htm
which had the details I wanted.

City	Ex-Showroom	Registration & Service Charges (Individual)	Registration & Service Charges (Company)	Insurance	Total (Individual)	Total (Company)
Calcutta	760,998	5,815	6,715	24,578	791,391	792,291
Chennai	768,976	19,600	36,200	18,207	806,783	823,383
Delhi	749,802	4,465	4,465	24,330	778,597	778,597
Hyderabad	802,093	56,150	56,150	18,955	877,198	877,198
Mumbai	832,010	39,400	106,400	31,750	903,160	970,160

Hmmm. The Baleno (there was only one variant back then - no Lxi or Vxi) cost 8 lakhs back then, in Chennai.
Compare this with my Lxi, which cost me only 5.8 lakhs. And the Vxi was 6.5 lakhs when I bought my car.

No wonder the Baleno did not really take off at that time. For a guy putting down 8lakhs, it would have made
better sense to go the Lancer or Honda City way, by paying a few thousands more.

Now that Maruti is mulling release of the new Baleno, let's see how they do the pricing this time around.

My online garage at Team-BHP

2006-02-22T13:04:00.000+05:30

Just got around to creating an online garage for my Black Beauty on Team-BHP.
For those that are not aware, Team-BHP (http://www.team-bhp.com/) is an
awesome forum for Indian car/bike lovers.

If you want any information about cars (which one to buy in a particular segment or
price bracket, what performance or visual modifications to do to your car and so on),
this site is for you. It is AWESOME, to be short and sweet.

Have a look at my beauty at the link below.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/vbpicgallery.php?do=view&g=212

How many cars does one need ?

2006-01-24T20:26:00.000+05:30

A few years ago, I happened to read an article about the Tamil
filmstar Sarath Kumar owning 20 cars. My reaction was, this guy
is either nuts or wants to show off or likes a vulgar display of wealth.

Well, now I think differently. Is it wrong to have different cars that
serve different purposes ? Infact, isn't it better to have a car for a
specific purpose, instead of having just one car that is used for all
purposes ? Lets take a guy who owns an SUV, which in most cases
is a fuel guzzler. Since he has only 1 car, he would use it for even
short drives to the grocery shop when a smaller car would have
served the purpose well.

This led me to draw up a list of cars that I would like to own - the
rationale being only their usefulness and not snob value. Most
people, when asked to name their dream car, would invariably
come up with names like Benz, Rolls-Royce, Porche etc. However,
as much as I admire these cars, I never have felt the need to own
one of them.

My dream car list would look like below :
1. A Benz Smart-type car - For city driving for going to office etc.
Can take only max 2 persons with some space for a few bags in
the rear. We do not have such a car in India yet, but I am sure
we will have one soon - priced around 1lac, around 400 - 500 cc
and with fantastic mileage.
P.S. : Please note that I do not want the Benz-Smart itself, bcos it
is too pricey. Given at 1lac, I would surely take it.

2. A Maruti Omni - For weekend outings with 6-7 friends and space
for a few cases of beer, food etc. Or when many relatives drop in at
the same time and one car is not enough to take them out.

3. A WagonR - For outings with the family (wife & kids). Compact,
yet more than enough for 3-4 people.

4. Baleno - Finally a real sedan for those highway drives when you
need speed and power.

That would be a dream line-up of cars.

The search and the final decision.

2006-01-16T13:30:00.000+05:30

After 7 years of latent intentions and 4 months of serious thinking,
I finally bought my first car - A Suzuki Baleno. However, the
excitement cannot be compared to the time 10 years ago when I
bought my first motorcycle.

Our first car came in 1985, a shiny new chocolate brown Maruti
Suzuki 800 for the princely sum of Rs.59000/- (less than 1400$
at today's exchange rate). It served us well for around 20 years
before we finally decided to sell it off in Nov'2004. Fetched us 40K,
which is an incredibly good resale value. Ofcourse, the car was still
in great working condition, with only 52000kms clocked and the
paint still as good as new. Lot of care had gone into its maintenance,
mainly periodic washing and waxing, and this was reflected in the
resale price. The buyer was pretty impressed with the dent/scratch
- free exteriors and mainly the fully Japanese engine under the hood.
I would have liked to hold on to it for many more years, but my wife
would have none of it. So finally had to let go, with a heavy heart.
Occasionally, I see it zipping around in Chennai and a talk with the
new owner revealed that he was quite happy with it.

Along the way, in 1999, we bought our 2nd car for my sister's use -
again a Maruti800, but fitted with an aircon. After 14 years, the
price was now Rs.2,40,000/- (approx 5400$), a 3-fold increase in
price with a proportionate decrease in quality. Almost 95% of the car
(everything except the gearbox) was now being manufactured in
India and the deterioration in quality was quite glaring.

Anyway, having sold the car, the focus was now on acquiring a new
one as replacement. In 1985, there were only 2 other makes of cars
in the market, apart from Maruti-Suzuki. Both being vintage quality
cars with ancient technology from Fiat and Hindustan motors.
So, it was a no-brainer when it came to choosing Suzuki.
And to make things easier, Suzuki had only one model, the Maruti800.

But the car market in 2005 was a different ballgame altogether.
Now, there were more than 1o car manufacturers, each having cars in
different segments (compact, sedan, MUV, SUV etc) and each segment
having different variants to choose from. Having had a long and fairly
good experience with Maruti-Suzuki, I decided to stick with Maruti again.
Living in the city with its crawling traffic, a Maruti800 would have been
the ideal choice, low price combined with the best fuel economy of all
cars in India (maybe even the world). However, my wife would have
none of it. She wanted a change from the Maruti800. We finally decided
on the WagonR - a not-so-good looking car, resembling a loaf of bread -
but with the new tall-boy design which is pretty good on ergonomics.

We had almost bought it when I happened to test drive the Baleno
(a sedan from Suzuki, 1600cc, 94 bhp, 175 kms top speed) and was
hooked. The aircon in the Baleno is acknowledged to be the best
among all cars in India and rated even better than the one in the
Benz S-class (a car that costs 10 times more than the Baleno).

What followed was an intense fight between the mind and the heart,
between logic and crush. The 'car'dinal rule of city living is "The bigger
the city, the smaller your car should be". The Baleno, though classy
and powerful is not really a good bet for an Indian city. Being big, it is
difficult to zip in and out of traffic, needs more parking space, delivers
lesser kms per litre of petrol and so on. To cut a long story short, the
heart won and we decided to buy the Baleno and selected a shiny
black car. If looks could kill, this car would be hanged for multiple
murder. Sexy looks, yet a robust exterior, fancy stuff inside, 94 horses
waiting under the hood for my command and an aircon that makes
mincemeat of even hot Chennai weather.

I was a little worried about the mileage that it would deliver per litre
of petrol. But some quick calculations revealed that it gave atleast
12km to the litre (city driving with a/c) and 16kmpl (highways with
a/c). Not bad for a 1600cc car when smaller 1100cc cars like the
Santro give the same. And when compared to cars in its category,
the mileage can only be said to be awesome. The Accent-1500cc
& Corsa-1300cc return 10kmpl, the Getz-1300cc gives around
11kmpl and the Optra-1600cc gives a measly 8kmpl.

So, all-in-all a pretty good car.

VJ calling.

2006-01-06T12:55:00.000+05:30

An interesting incident happened yesterday as I was driving back from work.

I was at the Cenotaph Road - Mount Road signal waiting for the light to go green.
A guy on a bike pulled over by my side and signalled me to lower the windows.
When I lowered the windows, this guy asked me how much mileage I get and
about the performance of the car. Since I had done similar enquiries with many
car owners before buying my car, I could understand and replied to his questions.
He said he was buying the car the next day and wanted to confirm. I told him
that he could go ahead without any worries.

It was then I noticed that this guy looked vaguely familiar. But I could not
actually place him. So, I told him that I seem to have seen him somewhere.
He replied that he was a VJ on SS Music TV channel. And then it struck me
that he was VJ Craig of that channel.

For those who don't know him, see the attached snap.

Hey Craig, if you happen to read this, "Have fun with your Baleno. It is one helluva car."

Some snaps of my Black Beauty.

2005-12-27T16:07:00.000+05:30

Why a Baleno ?

2005-12-22T15:20:00.000+05:30

A good question. Why the Baleno of all the cars available in the market ?

Well, I am by heart a staunch believer in the credo that if something can
be done with one hand, never use two. Translated to car speak, if a small
car fulfills your requirements, why go for a big car. I am not one of those
that go out on frequent road trips, have lots of stuff that they carry around,
thereby requiring a boot and thus need a sedan.
Also, I have been using a small car (the M800) for 20 long years since 1985.
I have done many Madras-Kerala trips on that car and never faced any problems.
And also believe in "Smaller the city, smaller your car".

So, the Baleno was not on my radar when I was scouting for a new car. Having
been a Suzuki user for 2 decades and having the best of experience with their
car, I did not need to look at any other manufacturer for my next car. I would
have again gone for an M800 or an Alto, but was quite eager to try out the
tall boy variety of cars which not only gave you a height advantage on the road
(like SUVs), but also made getting in and out of a car a lot easier. So, the WagonR
made sense and also identified the color as "midnight black".

But then, happened to test drive the Baleno (just for fun) and was hooked. The a/c
was awesome, seating just perfect and the power set my pulse racing. Lo and behold,
I had fallen flat on my face for a Baleno.

Now that I had the Baleno in my sights, I looked around for other comparable cars
in the same C-segment. The choices I had was the Ikon 1.6, Accent, Indigo, Corsa
and the new Honda City. The first four were straightaway rejected due to their
parentage ie. being American, Korean and Indian. As a rule I do not buy American
products if another option is available (stems from my disagreement with their
foreign policy) and as far as cars are concerned, American cars are pathetic when
fuel economy is concerned, which is a big factor for me. Korean cars are better
compared to American cars, but still have had issues like "car catching fire" and
again fuel economy not exactly near what I expect. And Indian cars - well, there
are serious quality issues and one thing I want for sure in my car is reliability.
Corsa though coming from the German Opel stable, is again a subsidiary of GM.

That left only the new Honda City in the race, which had kind of different (new?)
looks and rumours of having exceptional fuel economy - one newspaper indicated
highway mileage of 25kmpl which would mean around 18kmpl in the city, which
if it was true is exceptional. However, enquiries with their dealer indicated that
they were not in the mood to give any discount at all and I had to decide whether
it was worth paying 1.5 lacs more in the hope that I will get 1.5 times the mileage
of a Baleno.

So, a little practical thinking made me go for the Baleno. And that is it, a big story
told sweet and short.

Baleno Trivia

2005-12-21T20:44:00.000+05:30

Some trivia about the Baleno :

1. The term "Baleno" means greased lightning / flash of lightning in Italian.
Well, that's what other cars would think when they see a Baleno zip past them.

2. The A/c in the Baleno is rated better than the one in the Benz S-class sedan.
No wonder, I do not need to use any more than the lowest fan setting even during
the peak summer in Chennai.

3. It has the best fuel economy among the cars in its class (12kmpl city driving with a/c
and 17kmpl on highways with a/c).
I can hear the Corsa, Accent, Optra owners moan their hearts out, given their city
mileage of 10, 10 and 8kmpl respectively.

4. Much has been said about the rear of the Baleno - that the lights could have been
designed better. But take a look at it from the front and experience the ecstacy of its
curves and the mean look that resembles the facial profile of a python.
Beware, this is one mean car.

5. A top speed of 175kmph means you can reach your destination faster.
I don't think any other car in its class comes close.