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S. Muralidhar

I am a non-resident Indian, planning to settle down in Kerala after a fairly long service. I have been driving cars with automatic transmission abroad.

I am looking for information on Indian cars, vans and sports utility vehicles which feature an automatic gear-box, costing between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 15 lakh, with such details as price range, mileage, diesel versions, service in small towns and so on. Does the Maruti Versa come with an automatic option? How about the Wagon R?

ARIAT RAJA

Unlike the fondness for cars with automatic transmission that is obvious among buyers in the US (95 per cent of all cars there are automatics), most of the European and Asian countries do not seem to share this weakness for clutchless driving.

In India, however, automatics are only now being offered in a few cars. They continue to be targeted at ex-pats and women. Automatics also occupy the top slots in each of the passenger car segments in terms of price.

We, in India, it seems, do not prefer automatics not only because it does not give a driver the feeling of being in charge of the vehicle, but also that automatic transmission variants of most cars are between Rs 70,000 and Rs 1.3 lakh more than their manual transmission cousins (at the same trim levels).

Automatic transmission variants also, by nature, tend to offer lower mileage compared to their manual transmission counterparts.

Though most of the automatics in the country too are computer controlled, the inherent characteristics of an automatic and the lack of more sophisticated fuel and engine management systems puts most Indian automatics in the shade when it comes to fuel efficiency.

However, if one is a particularly poor driver, incapable of handling the manual transmission gearbox well enough to squeeze out that extra km from every litre, an automatic is a better choice even if mileage is an important parameter.

Ford and Fiat do not offer any automatic transmission vehicles in India. General Motors offers a four-speed automatic gearbox option for the Chevrolet Optra, priced at about Rs 10.5 lakh, ex-showroom.

Hyundai offers automatic transmission on two of its car models — the Santro Xing in the small car segment priced at Rs 4.26 lakh (ex-showroom) and an H-matic four-speed auto transmission in the Sonata 2.7 V6 variant priced at Rs 15.2 lakh.

Maruti Udyog offers the automatic transmission options in the Zen, the Wagon R and the Esteem, all of which feature a three-speed automatic.

Prices range from about Rs 4.9 lakh for the Zen AT to about Rs 6.35 lakh for the Esteem AX. Maruti does not offer an automatic option for the Versa.

Going by your requirements for servicing in small towns, good mileage and so on, it would be better to choose between the automatic options that are currently being offered by either Maruti or Hyundai for their small cars. So your choice could be between the Zen, Wagon R and the Santro Xing.

If I want to purchase a car and my budget restrictions only allow a vehicle in the price range of Rs 2-3.3 lakh, what should I choose?

T.R SAHA

Within the confines of the budget that you have set, the options available are only in the entry-level small car segment.

If the choice has to be closer to the Rs 2 lakh level, the only option, of course, is the Maruti 800. The Maruti Omni may also considered, if you do not mind driving this mini-van and missing out on the air-conditioning.

However, as you are willing to consider a car that is nearly Rs 3 lakh or thereabouts, you may be better off paying that extra bit for air-conditioning and, more important, for power-steering, which is increasingly becoming a big plus while driving in congested city roads.

The best choice, therefore, would be the Maruti Alto LXi (with power steering and air-conditioning), which has been recently re-priced at about Rs 2.95 lakh in Kolkata.

That should be well within you budget and also offer most of the comfort and safety features that slightly bigger and better equipped cars such as the Santro Xing, Zen and Fiat Palio incorporate. However, build quality will be a notch lower than these top-end B segment cars. The other B segment cars are all priced higher than the budget that you have listed.

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