Ownership Report: Chevrolet Beat

[Jerryleen Soosaileen]

Pics of my Sweety

[Jerryleen Soosaileen]

Hi Guys,

PS: Review posted here is my personal opinion please visit concerned dealers for more info.

I have purchased Chevrolet Beat Lt from Trident Chevrolet, Kalyan nagar. Let me give brief description about different stages of my hunt first new car.

1. Hunting for car:

I have been checking reviews of cars through Team-bhp for first hand review of car by their owners. My requirement would be for weekend use of car, whenever we need to go to church and go out on short trips to city center for shopping as my main mode of transport is pulsar 150 cc. We have Santro without power steering and Honda city. I have practiced in Santro, but it is real tough to park or take turns in a car without power steering and Honda city is my brothers. Before I decided buy new car i never drove car alone without assistance, so basically i'm newbie in driving. However I loved torqy nature of santro, with no visible loss of power while fully loaded with 5 passengers. I initial had 4 lakhs as budget for new car, which was enough for entry level cars. So my shortlisted cars is as follows.

1. Alto VXI

My friend owns a Alto, he is mighty pleased with his car. I found most of the reviews favorable to it. However with BS4 version being brought in force, with K series engine being introduced in August and I felt it is too late for my requirements. Personally I felt car's outer design has not changed since several years and it has got very cramped interiors. Car doesn't come with body colored bumpers even in the top end. In terms of accessories it has almost nothing given as OEM except key less entry. Car engine is peppy, its fun to drive in city traffic with awesome mileage. I had plans to buy this if my budget got reduced due to some unforeseen circumstances.

2 Wagon R

I disliked it right from the beginning, as brick shape car was not in my favor. It had very cheap plastics inside and peppiness in Wagon R was less compared to Alto as it had additional weight. I also found it had issues with gear box and boot space is not that great for car of this size. New Wagon R was launched after I bought Chevy beat, however i felt Maruthi has wasted R&D effort by reproducing same brick like car but with changed front end. I followed New Wagon R near marathahalli road, it was huge and imposing with oversized windows, it was as if an SUV. My wife outrightly rejected Wagon R because of brick shape.

3. Volkswagen Polo

It is really good car, it was very sturdy looking car with mile crunching engine. I havent seen the car from inside as high end model was too pricey. If my budget was more I would have definitely bought Polo.

4. Maruthi Ritz:

I felt this is the best car in the segment with respect to performance and VFM. It specification is the best in the segment. However high end model was pricey so i could not opt for it.

5. Fiat Punto:

External Design of the car is simply mind blowing and it looks huge. My requirements was for 1.2 litre engine and with good external design with equally good interiors. However interior of Punto was disappointing and 1.2 liter engine does not enough enough power.I found Punto with 1.4 liter engine has good performance as per reviews posted in many websites.

6. Ford Figo;

Its a big car with loads of space and it is perfect family car if you choose diesel variant. Reason for not opting is that of outer design which is taken directly from ford fusion. I want something smaller to go around the city and easier to park small car rather than big car.I have no information about performance of petrol but diesel is best VFM if you for figo deisel.

6 Hyundia i10 :

At the fag end of my search there were 2 cars in contention that is i 10 and Beat lt. i10 kappa was below 5 lakhs but lacked VFM accesories which is available in beat. I would have bought i10 if they had provide same accessories. I felt rear design of the car is dated and there are too many on road which makes it boring to look at.

7. Beat LT w/o options:

This model does not come with alloy wheels, ABS, Airbags and golden chevy logo on the steering, we cannot fix logo as accessory as per service head in Trident Chevrolet. I had to increase my budget to 5 lakhs for this buy.

Dealer experience:

I had been to just one dealer as other other dealers were far from home and office.

Trident Chevrolet :

Dealer is located just 1 km from my office so i had privilege of disturbing them whenever i had any clarification and Dealer was more than happy to answer my queries. Before I decided to visit showroom i had done some R & D regarding Beat so I don't have to stress the hapless sales person.

On the day I visited there where almost skeletal staff, i had to wait for 5 minutes for salesperson to arrive. At last Salesperson named Hema (formerly Trident Hyundai ) arrived at the scene. she introduced herself with manipuri accent, gave detailed information about the car and accessories list. However she couldn't answer few queries as she claimed she was newbie and was transfered from Trident Hyundia. She was hesitating to give full demo of car, for instance when i asked her to demo integrated audio system she was evasive, but when i stressed that i'm seriously considering a buy she relented to do it. As I was a newbie in car driving, i couldn't accept test drive offered by dealer.

Later i had made countless visits to showroom just to check different aspects of car and also introduced the car to my wife, she instantly fell in love with Chevy beat. We had decided to go for misty lake color as we had 2 cars with beige. Next visit was with my parents, they were really happy with car design, I even made them sit in the car just to check if 3 persons can sit comfortably in the rear and they felt comfortable. However dad was against Misty lake color as it was dull to look, but we felt misty lake color was next best color to beige. Dealer was way good to believe, they showed the workshop, stock yard and body shop.

Before I gave advance I decided to try check with Hyundai if they have anything better to provide in terms of accessories. I visited Trident Hyundia near cauvery theator, before i could see the car they wanted to discuss finance, insurance and other things. As I had learnt they give first year insurance free and loyalty bonus. In terms of accessories, there nothing different so decided to ditch i10. Even sales person was very passive as he meekly said Beat Lt is better choice as there are selling both i10 and beat.

After long discussion with wife with regards to finance, we decided to go for beat Lt without options as LT with options was 50 k more and waiting period was around 2 months. Misty lake was readily available and delivery promised immediately after loan approval. so we booked the car for Beat Lt w/o options with misty lake by paying 5000.

Even though dealer wanted to deliver fast, we couldn't take delivery as there was parking issue near my home. My dad was totally against Misty lake as it was very dull, so i had to change my car color to Linen beige at the time of down payment. Unfortunately linen beige was not in stock so dealer informed that delivery would be delayed and so delivery date was fixed for June 5th (Our Engagement anniversary) .

Week before delivery, car arrived in stock yard, it was getting fitted with auto cop key less entry accessory. We were also given chassi number and engine number to keep it as reference. We are also offered to check before delivery and did small test drive in stock yard.

Delivery was planned at 3 pm, we reached there at 2:30. We found that due to flyover construct just apposite to showroom lot was dust got accumulated and so asked for washing it again. Still on delivery it wasn't squicky clean. Just as we were leaving to take car home we were given temporary registration of the car and I went through the details to make sure there was no issues later. I found that vin number in car documents was different when compared to temporary rto form. I refused delivery till matter was sorted, issue got escalated to branch manager, who promptly opplogised for the issue and showed us documents with regards to manufacturing and other documents which shows correct vin number, it seems rto fumbled in registration. They also gifted chevy clock as it was our engagement anniversary. As i was still newbie, I took help of chevy person to take the car home and once home i washed the car to remove dust stains.

We got calls from customer support of Trident Chevrolet, regarding performance of car and showroom. we also received call from Chevrolet directly inquiring quality of service and i'm happy with the way purchase went by.

On our first month reassurance check up, car was cleaned well and i felt that service good as of now. Next service in dec 10.

Bank: HDFC
Insurance: ICICI lombard around 15 k
accessory: auto cop ---> 2,800/-
car cover: 950/-
with steering cover, mudflaps, internal black carpet and boot carpet free (i don't know exact name)
On road price: 4,92,000

[shishirbn]

Superb dude. Even we have the same color Beat back in mysore. Just 1 month old.

MODS can this ownership section moved to the respective section rather than in introduction section.

[Godfather]

Nice review. I like the color.
Shishir.. what mods are you talking about.. there are no mods, although i do know a certain support monkey who can help

[Jerryleen Soosaileen]

First month after I bought the car I drove the car only after 11 pm to make myself proficient in driving usually accompanied by my brother. Much before the purchase I practiced in Santro LE which had no power steering in it but has very good torque at lower rpm . Meanwhile I consulted friends, forums and innumerable websites to choose my first car.

How I Zeroed in:

Despite being launched in December I couldn't spot the car on roads so I was not aware of Beat, However one of colleague had purchased I10 and he was giving his story of car purchase, so he happened to mention Beat rather casually. I Googled and did some digging around to get more details and found the dealer is just 1 km from office. Off I went from my office and did some visual inspection of the car. Car external and internal was awesome in terms of fit , finish and design. Since that day (month of Feb) I started checking ownership reports to check pros and cons of the car.

One of cons which dominated forums were 1. bootspace 2. Undersized tyre size 3. Visibility factor 4 No hight adjustment seats 5 As GM is in dire straights w r t its financial situation in US possibility of its shutting down Indian operations was an issue 6 The most important one i.e., Pick up issue.

Boot space: I don't intend to travel long distances by car, I prefer bus due to safety reasons. May be I might do short travel at radius of 150 km at max if needed. So boot space is not an issue
Undersized tyre size: This can resolved by shelling out 20 k plus, but I might do that once existing tires wears out.
Visibility factor: I'm 5.8 so I have an issue with visibility, I struggle to take tight turns to avoid being hit and me banging somebody. I wish I can install height adjustment seats and I'm not sure where I can get and how much it might cost.

GM in bankruptcy: Well if GM dies somebody else will take over so it was not an issue.
Pick up: Just a month after we purchased, My bro and entire family went for Infant Jesus church. That was first time we took it to bit longer drive, as my bro drives Honda City and Santro he started commenting about pick being not up to the mark. He kept saying I10 was better as his friends have bought the same. I called service advisor in trident chevrolet regarding pick up and he had no anwer for it. However I did some digging using google about the issue. Some owners have had same issue, but they got it resolved by ECU remapping at dealers place. I enquired about the same with service head of dealer but he denied about any ECU remapping being done. Then I wrote a Email regarding the issue to GM India regarding the issue, then very next day I got call from service head and He accepted to do the needful as he had instructions to remap ECU. After ECU remapping I found the pick has improved a lot and it sprints to 80 km/hr with in no time.

First scratch:

I was trying to park the car when all of a sudden power conked off, I coudnt seeing a thing as it was pitch dark. while reversing it climbed over a incline and hit the compound wall. As i was damn slow on half clutch I managed to reduce damage, upon inspection paint was sheared off in left corner of bumper but no dents. I showed to service advisor for touch job, he quoted 2000 rs. I refused to take his offer, decided to leave the scratch as it is.

Mileage:

As i don't use car for commuting to office, I use only if needed that too radius of 5 Km and just to pick and drop my wife to nearest pick up point. Occasionally to Koramangala and surrounding areas. So i don't intend to check mileage.

Issues till date:

None, I hope it will be like that.

[KRRaj]

Nice Review and Update Jerry. Like the rear of the Beat most and also it funky dashboard.

[shishirbn]

But the Dashboard is very good. The only problem is the driver seat is so low that it is very difficult to see the sides of the bonnet for guaging the width

[Jerryleen Soosaileen]

More pics, Photos taken on first day of delivery

[Jerryleen Soosaileen]

Hi Guys

I had a strange experience where in outside of front windshield started misting during rain. I used front demister option in my car but it just removed mist from inside but not outside mist. Only option was to use wipers to clear mist, but it was dangerous as beams from other casr was blinding me. Anybody faced this

[tadukuttan]

Hi Guys

I had a strange experience where in outside of front windshield started misting during rain. I used front demister option in my car but it just removed mist from inside but not outside mist. Only option was to use wipers to clear mist, but it was dangerous as beams from other casr was blinding me. Anybody faced this

This problem happens frequently when the humidity is high, and the inside of the car is cold. I do the following when I notice this happening -

• increase a/c temp
• shift the a/c blower to point at the front windsheild and change it to heater
• Use the windsheild washer to cleanup