I don’t know what me do this, but once everyone slept at home, I took the car for a spin around my neighborhood.
BHPian Nexonite recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
I have been meaning to key in my user review for the Nexon and finally here I am sharing my honest review cum journal of my buying/driving experience of a 2023 June Nexon XZAbought prior to the current face-lift. Readers do take note that I am a first timer to driving a car but have been riding bikes since 2011. My rationale may not make sense to folks who have been driving around for years. These may not be the right way but I am just capturing my thought process back in time as it unfolded. I have clocked 17k KMS in the 1.5 years of my ownership. So this must be a proper ownership review from a first time driver.
This post might be a bit lengthy. I somehow like riding my bikes and only people around me know that I take those tightest of squeeze through gaps and somehow enjoy driving in traffic. My only prior driving experience is with the driving school vehicle as we didn’t have car at our home in my childhood and it never really bothered me to have a car post my employment. Having a newborn kid at home started changing things with the need to travel around in rains and constant need to randomly visit hospital at odd hours. So, I started searching for a new car and it was quite a lengthy search looking through random car reviews and trying to get myself up to speed on things to consider. I had started with a hatchback in mind and slowly switched towards compact SUVs or as some may call it the raised hatch back as I live in Chennai and a constant fear of having to wade through water in case of incessant rains. This led me to the need to look for good ground clearance. I also wanted a wider car to have a good 2nd row space to fit in 3 adults. So that somehow eliminated Venue from my mind and I stuck only with between Brezza, Nexon and XUV300.
When I started looking both Brezza and Nexon were due for a face-lift and rumors of face-lift was in news. I somehow didn’t like the pricing of Brezza and I had visited the model in person and somehow it didn’t feel right to me for that price. I had eliminated XUV300 only for the fact that I may not have a better boot space. I didnt even visit this in showroom. So most of my decisions are done behind the keyboard.
This probably isn’t right but at the end this is what I did. Nexon was actually not in my list until I had randomly taken a peek at a red Nexon at a traffic signal. It somehow caught my eyes and I started looking up for people reviews on the same. Like the classic narrative everyone paints, the reviews were mixed and everyone mentions the service is a hit or miss. The only rationale behind why I still chose Nexon is based on the fact that Nexon had been a best seller and somehow people are buying this for a reason and probably all these negatives mentioned are not major dealbreakers. By that time, I had been looking at the online reviews of cars, I had enrolled myself in a patch-up class at a nearby driving school as the last time I drove a car was in 2012 when I took my driving license. Having driven almost comfortably and having a good steering control, I had further confidence that I could drive a car but I did realize that owning an Automatic could ease things up. My primary purpose of car would be long drives between Chennai-Madurai/Kumbakonam and rare city drives as I mostly commute to office by bike.
Around April 2023, I decided to visit the Tata showroom and I knew the features even before visiting and exactly which model I had to buy. The only missing piece was whether I was ready to drive I discussed with the sales rep on the pricing and concluded on the best pricing as I didnt really need a briefing on the features. One another reason I felt Nexon was right fit was that it came with AMT against AT in Brezza which meant I had to spend 75k less than I had to for AT. So, I ended up requesting for a test drive and there was no vehicle immediately available and sales rep assured he would be get me one at my Home. As he promised, I had the vehicle but it came in only by 5PM and worst thing was it was a Manual. This was a brand new car as well. I saw a bit scared internally and somehow managed to do a TD but had moments where the person accompanying the drive must have definitely had his heart pumping high . I requested for an AMT variant for TD as I was not fully convinced that I was ready to own a car as I always felt that owning a car comes with a big responsibility as anyone on the road could be injured easily for my mistakes and could be lethal even in best case scenario. Once I got the AMT variant for TD by next week. I was much more comfortable and was pleasantly surprised how much is it to drive around in a AMT. Both my TD were like a driving session than a real TD. Somehow convincing myself that I could handle this beast, I went ahead with the booking. I did book a Red Nexon. So somehow I found no other color matches better than Red for a Nexon. I got my vehicle confirmed in about 2 weeks though the promised waiting time was 4 weeks. By this time, I had been reading on forums including Team-BHP on checklist for PDI. I was happy with PDI and had no major issues. On the day of delivery, I had requested for a driver to drop car at my home post the ceremony. In my mind, I was still not ready to drive in traffic. So literally, I had taken only TD of Tata nexon for my ownership and only visited Brezza in person.
By May 2023, I got keys to my Nexon XZA and was still wondering how am I going to drive and whether I would really go for long drives. I took delivery around 12 in the day and we reached home by lunch. I don’t know what me do this, but once everyone slept at home, I took the car for a spin around my neighborhood around the usual track that we had used in the last month during my patch-up driving sessions. I was literally driving in second gears and didnt exceed 30kmph as I was scared to do that. I ended up driving around 20kms on that drive and my wife called me up scared where I was and why I took car out without others around.
If I have to probably go back in time, If I hadn’t been able to comfortably made this drive, I would have ended up with a 13 lakh machine gathering dust in my parking lot. So from here on, whatever happened was even surprising to me. Such is the level of comfort and confidence that Nexon brought into my driving. Maybe I was a natural driver but still Nexon gave me all the confidence when I had to drive it around. So having driven around nearby areas, we chose to take the car for our first long drive to Kumbakonam. We started early morning from Chennai and this was within the first 1000kms of the car. I still hadnt got through the fears of hitting the median and used to avoid the middle lane. Such was the level of confidence and fear of damaging my car. Once on the highway, I felt confident was able to reach Kumbakonam in a decent time. Towards the end of my trip I had my first incident, having driven all the way from Chennai to Kumbakonam bypass, this was a last thing I would have imagined to happen. I was driving behind a Town bus for about a good 5-10minutes in a 2 lane road. At a junction near the bypass road, the bus stopped for dropping/picking up passengers. Since it took some time for him to start back, I decided to overtake from stand still as there were no approaching vehicles. I had missed to notice my left fender and ended up scratching the bus and that to at a pace of about 10-15kmph. What bothers me is that I had driven all the way from chennai up to Kumbakonam bypass and ended up denting my brand new car by moving it from stand still while overtaking, such a rookie mistake of not noticing the fender. To date, this is the only scratch I did to my car and I should have been more careful. My wifey was rightly warning me by my side to be patient and avoid the overtake. There I gave her an easy reason to blame me forever and what happens when I dont listen to her words.
From here on, the fun with Nexon begins as I have taken the car for following trips since then,
- Several Madurai/Trichy- Chennai and Kumbakonam-Chennai trips. After the initial day trip, All my drives have been post 5 PM start from Chennai as I seem to like driving in night where the road becomes much clear without distractions and I could easily check vehicles from behind by looking only for a streak of light. Still my relatives are bothered by random dusty lorries without proper reflective stickers waiting for an accident. I somehow still find it comfortable to drive in the evening and reach destination by 11/12.
- First hill trip to Yelagiri as I wanted to see what was it like to drive around in a hill. This increased my confidence to take up my future hill rides. I was always feeling in control and felt there could be no better handler than Nexon.
- A long trip to chikmagalur with a stop at Hassan. I really enjoyed the drive between Chikmagalur- Sringeri-Horanadu-Hassan. By far the best drive I had as the roads were really hilly and scenic throughout. I drove about ~1700kms in 4 days in this trip.
- Drive to Kollimalai(Kolli Hills). Once in an Interview I had heard Mr.Velusamy from Mahindra mention Kolli hills to be straining drive for a vehicle. So I really wanted to take a drive when I had a chance. The drive was indeed a bit challenging and I had learnt a lot of discipline to follow in hill drives from this trip.
Mileage
When I bought the car, I had only planned for driving about 7k KMS in a year but ended up driving 12k KMS in my first year. Such was the fun I had with my car and I am now more composed and patient in my driving. I try to maintain a max of 90-100 kmph in my drives on highways.
Opinion on AMT
For those who are looking at AMT for their cars, I say maybe its a bit sluggish for those who drive ATs or DCTs or Manuals, but the sheer comfort it brings in with the little price overhead you pay is really worth it. Other than the slight power drop you may feel in shift from 1st to 2nd Gear, you wont notice anything while driving an AMT. Once you understand the AMT shifts, you would easily match your A pedal and plan for an upshift. Even the power drop I mention in 1st to 2nd can be easily masked if you know when the shift happens. After about 15+kmph, the shift happens and 6th gear switch can happen at about 72+kmph, knowing all this would also help to attain a better mileage. I try to mostly drive with single pedal in highways as I leave A pedal whenever there is onward slowdown. The best mileage I got in all my trips was about 16+kmpl in tank to tank method. I still have to try and control my speed to 80-90 band for an even better mileage, that’s a Work in progress.
Opinion on Service
All my service experience so far has been good and I did have a body shop repair for the dent on my left fender and was mostly delivered within promised timelines. I say the service experience is livable. I do understand all the services that I took are only scheduled services other than the body shop visit and I don’t have any first hand experience of how service is handled by other manufacturers. For an average joe like me, so far things do look good. So fingers crossed for any major breakdowns and hope the service experience is equally good there as well. I did take an extended warranty on my car to have peace of mind in my ownership and I do intend to own this longer than 5 years to ensure I get the maximum out of the money I have put in. Considering this as a depreciating asset, I was never fond of changing cars in a hurry. I like to own it as long as it is not practically driveable.
Handling
For a first time driver like me, I felt the car never let me out of confidence that I am losing control. I never had second thoughts about pushing into sharp curves at high speeds. I had always found the car to be in control. In all those moments that I had to come to sudden braking due to idiots on the road, the car did as I intended. I would rate that this is a good car with good driving manners and will not let you down.
I really wanted to write this out to ensure that anyone as a first time buyer looking for a compact SUV should highly consider the Nexon. I have never seconded my decision to buy Nexon in my ownership and hope it stays that way. Hope I have covered all the basics. Thanks for taking your time to read my opinion cum journal.
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