BHPian rajvardhanraje recently shared this with other enthusiasts: My current daily ride is a Kia Carens 1.4 TGDI with a manual transmission. The secondary and tertiary cars are a Tiago 1.2 MT and a Celerio 1.0 MT.Turbo Petrol Pros:Strong mid-range makes overtaking an effortless activity. Highways drives feel much more relaxed.Overtaking on single lane highways no longer requires planning. Just a downshift to get the engine in the peak torque band does the job.Driving sedately within 2.5K rpm yields good fuel efficiency. I manage to get 15+ on highways.No need to rev the engine to high rpms. As long as it stays above 1700 rpm, overtakes are easily managed. Even for aggressive overtakes, I rarely exceed 3.5K rpm.Compared to a NA, the performance is better when fully loaded with 7 people. The only trick is to keep it in the turbo band.Turbo Petrol Cons:Lag: Though the engine is not dead till the turbo spools up, it does feel sluggish below 1.5K rpm. This is more apparent when fully loaded. Not much of an issue on plains though. I have learnt to manage this by driving in lower gears and upshifting at higher rpms.Driving in ghats: For me, this is the biggest con. This has more to do with the Kia’s low displacement engine and tall gearing. Upshifting from 1st to 2nd drops the rpm by almost 1.5K. 2nd to 3rd, the rpm drops by 1K. On steeper inclines, this is a major pain. I need to rev the engine to almost 3K in 1st gear before upshifting, and 2.7K in 2nd gear before upshifting. The constant downshifts and upshifts make it a tiring exercise. Nowadays I rather prefer to keep in 2nd in ghats where one cannot exceed 40-45 kmph. Have seen Boleros easily keep up pace with me in these sections.Driving in moderate to high city traffic: There is no advantage driving a turbo petrol for the typical daily office runs in a Tier 1 city. One hardly gets to utilize the mid-range and frequent gearshifts make the experience more tiring. Lately I prefer to use my Celerio for office runs in Pune traffic.The Upgrade Dilemma:The lease for my current car ends early 2027. Not sure whether to retain it or not. Two key reasons are the manual transmission and the lack of low end torque. 90% of my driving takes place in the city. I attribute this more to the specific car I drive and less with all turbo-petrols.The issue is that the turbo-petrol has spoilt me in such a way that NAs just feel dull and boring. I curse it in city traffic, but one drive on the highway and it makes me forget all the cons.Buying a larger displacement (2.0L) turbo petrol does seem the logical upgrade, but limited options and fuel efficiency concerns keep me worried. NAs are no longer an option. Not confident with DCTs considering my driving pattern, so the options get restricted to Torque Converters. Hybrids seem the logical option, but options are again sparse. The 1.5L Suzuki/Toyota twins feel like a downgrade and the Hycross cost is out of bounds. Not confident on homegrown EVs considering reliability concerns.Check outBHPian commentsfor more insights and information.
