A SWIFT DIESEL & A SWIFTER PETROL
Mr. Kishore is now in search of a new small car. He drives about 800kms in a month which includes his daily 10 kms commute to office, shopping trips to the nearby mall twice a week, occasional trips to meet friends and relatives. Kishore has a budget of Rs.5 to 5.5 lakhs. He wants a hatchback that is easier to drive around in town. Like all Indians, he first turned to the nearest Maruti dealer to try the Swift, which he likes for its chunky, good looks. He got puzzled. There are two swifts- a petrol and a diesel. He was told that both are equally good. But which one should he go for?
He decides that he could go for the middle variant which offers power windows and central locking. In petrol version, it is called the VXi and in the diesel avatar, it is the VDi. The petrol Swift will cost him Rs. 4.69 lakhs on the road, while the diesel will be Rs.5.53 lakhs. But the salesman was good at convincing Kishore that the diesel will deliver nearly 17kmpl at the worst whereas the petrol will return only 14kmpl. And that combined with the lower costs of diesel fuel will cut down his expenses. Needless to say more, Kishore opted for the Swift diesel and is now one among the several thousand waiting over two months to get the car delivered.
He assumes that the lower running costs of the car would nullify the higher purchase price. But would he be able to make up for the costs with the potentially less kilometer he covers? Let us get the arithmetic done.
Kishore, as we have seen earlier, drives not more than 800kms a month. Taking into consideration, the average fuel consumptions of petrol and diesel respectively as 13.5kmpl and 16kmpl, he will need 60 litres of petrol or 50 litres of diesel. If we safely assume the price of petrol to be Rs.50 and that of diesel to be Rs.40, this kind of running will account to Rs.3000 on petrol and Rs.2000 on diesel. Kishore will now save Rs.1000 monthly when he drives a diesel.
But he has spent nearly Rs.85000 more to buy the diesel. So he should be able to cover up the additional cost of the car by running it like this, in seven years which is a joke. Look at the various propositions.
· Had he bought the Swift petrol, the Rs.85000 thus saved could be spent on petrol and he could drive without worrying about fuel expenses, for nearly two and half years.
· If Kishore gets his car financed, he would be paying Rs.2000 less, as EMI with the petrol car. That money can be happily spent on petrol for the term of the loan. You get a 500 kms, absolutely free.
· Or if he had that sum deposited in a bank, the interest added to the money he spends on fuel would take care of his additional running costs the petrol would incur.
FULL THROTTLE has driven the two cars back to back and found out that the Swift diesel is very swift indeed. Only that the petrol is swifter - and sweeter too. The petrol motor is creamy and smooth whereas in the diesel, a clatter is audible, though not intrusive. Both look similar except for the badgings and interiors offer similar levels of equipments in the similar variants.
The diesel version has a stiffer suspension at the front and drives on taller profile tyres as a result of which the ride quality is better than the petrol, but only slightly. The FIAT derived 1.3 JTD diesel engine puts out 75bhp and 19kg-m torque. It is linear in power delivery with very little turbo-lag and is more driveable in town than the petrol that needs to be revved. The gearshift quality is a notch above the petrol’s, but the clutch is heavier which means your left leg will complain in too much stop and go traffic. It is just as fast as the petrol, only a second slower in the 0-100kmph run. Where its trump-card lies is in the fuel economy stakes, a reason why it has such a long waiting list.
The petrol motor on the other hand may not be as economical, but it has good performance to boot. It has an 87bhp engine with 11.3kg-m torque. It makes the car much more fun to drive. Also you can buy the fully loaded ZXi variant with ABS, airbags, wider tyres, alloy wheels and climate control for the price of a Swift diesel (VDi). The petrol Swift is more refined, performs better, handles better and going by our equation, it will make more monetary sense to an average user than the Swift diesel. If you drive more than 1500kms a month, consider buying the diesel, otherwise don’t !
Mr. Kishore is now in search of a new small car. He drives about 800kms in a month which includes his daily 10 kms commute to office, shopping trips to the nearby mall twice a week, occasional trips to meet friends and relatives. Kishore has a budget of Rs.5 to 5.5 lakhs. He wants a hatchback that is easier to drive around in town. Like all Indians, he first turned to the nearest Maruti dealer to try the Swift, which he likes for its chunky, good looks. He got puzzled. There are two swifts- a petrol and a diesel. He was told that both are equally good. But which one should he go for?
He decides that he could go for the middle variant which offers power windows and central locking. In petrol version, it is called the VXi and in the diesel avatar, it is the VDi. The petrol Swift will cost him Rs. 4.69 lakhs on the road, while the diesel will be Rs.5.53 lakhs. But the salesman was good at convincing Kishore that the diesel will deliver nearly 17kmpl at the worst whereas the petrol will return only 14kmpl. And that combined with the lower costs of diesel fuel will cut down his expenses. Needless to say more, Kishore opted for the Swift diesel and is now one among the several thousand waiting over two months to get the car delivered.
He assumes that the lower running costs of the car would nullify the higher purchase price. But would he be able to make up for the costs with the potentially less kilometer he covers? Let us get the arithmetic done.
Kishore, as we have seen earlier, drives not more than 800kms a month. Taking into consideration, the average fuel consumptions of petrol and diesel respectively as 13.5kmpl and 16kmpl, he will need 60 litres of petrol or 50 litres of diesel. If we safely assume the price of petrol to be Rs.50 and that of diesel to be Rs.40, this kind of running will account to Rs.3000 on petrol and Rs.2000 on diesel. Kishore will now save Rs.1000 monthly when he drives a diesel.
But he has spent nearly Rs.85000 more to buy the diesel. So he should be able to cover up the additional cost of the car by running it like this, in seven years which is a joke. Look at the various propositions.
· Had he bought the Swift petrol, the Rs.85000 thus saved could be spent on petrol and he could drive without worrying about fuel expenses, for nearly two and half years.
· If Kishore gets his car financed, he would be paying Rs.2000 less, as EMI with the petrol car. That money can be happily spent on petrol for the term of the loan. You get a 500 kms, absolutely free.
· Or if he had that sum deposited in a bank, the interest added to the money he spends on fuel would take care of his additional running costs the petrol would incur.
FULL THROTTLE has driven the two cars back to back and found out that the Swift diesel is very swift indeed. Only that the petrol is swifter - and sweeter too. The petrol motor is creamy and smooth whereas in the diesel, a clatter is audible, though not intrusive. Both look similar except for the badgings and interiors offer similar levels of equipments in the similar variants.
The diesel version has a stiffer suspension at the front and drives on taller profile tyres as a result of which the ride quality is better than the petrol, but only slightly. The FIAT derived 1.3 JTD diesel engine puts out 75bhp and 19kg-m torque. It is linear in power delivery with very little turbo-lag and is more driveable in town than the petrol that needs to be revved. The gearshift quality is a notch above the petrol’s, but the clutch is heavier which means your left leg will complain in too much stop and go traffic. It is just as fast as the petrol, only a second slower in the 0-100kmph run. Where its trump-card lies is in the fuel economy stakes, a reason why it has such a long waiting list.
The petrol motor on the other hand may not be as economical, but it has good performance to boot. It has an 87bhp engine with 11.3kg-m torque. It makes the car much more fun to drive. Also you can buy the fully loaded ZXi variant with ABS, airbags, wider tyres, alloy wheels and climate control for the price of a Swift diesel (VDi). The petrol Swift is more refined, performs better, handles better and going by our equation, it will make more monetary sense to an average user than the Swift diesel. If you drive more than 1500kms a month, consider buying the diesel, otherwise don’t !
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