My New Car - Chevy Cruze

Dear Friends,
Thanks for visiting my blog. This is my first post and tried to do some thing similar earlier, but could not carry on the momentum. Hope fully this times, I hope to contiue.
This is my story on my new Chevy Cruze : The Diesel Rocket

Where all it started.
I was driving Hyundai Accent GVS from 2003, which was a great car and a perfect example of "Value for Money", but after 7 yrs, auto enthusiast inside me wanted to have some thing more powerful, more so, after experiencing the beautiful roads of NH7 (Bangalore to Hyderabad). It was my dream to own an suv like Toyota Fortuner, but because of financial constraints, decided to go for a sedan for time being (Like in many cases, where we settle for little less than our dream, because of mismatch in reality and dream).

Begin of Exploration:

Decided to sell my Hyundai, only if, I get more than 2 L. I first looked at VW Vento, but when physically examined, was not impressed with interiors, so dropped the idea. Then I almost decided on Toyota Corolla Altis diesel (even though, I was not impressed with its very low power, 88 bhp, which is 2 segment down) purely because of it's handling capability at high speed. Then I hit across Chevy Cruze, from Team - BHP forum. Purely looking at the feedback from team bhp experts and the user reviews, decided to give a serious thought.

Test Drive Experience:
I called for a test drive from Trident Chevy in Bangalore, and the sales rep, came prompt and gave me the car key for me to experience the car, sat in the car and tried to move and stalled the engine in first go (now I realized from the earlier comments on the cruze, that there is a 100% chance of stalling this car, if you do not respect it's power), the sales gave a proud smile and told me "sir, it is powerful". Second time, with lot of caution, moved the car second time, and I was so cautious that, any one from outside, would never think that I drove a car for 7 yrs :-)
Once the car started moving, after the initial turbo lag, the car just took off like a flight. I asked one of my good friend, to take the driver seat and both of us were very satisfied with the performance of the car, but on a nice smooth road.
Second time, I called for the test drive and took the car on a road, oops, to a place where there was a road 5 yrs back, the drive was not that comfortable, but not bad also.
I asked the sales guy to give a test drive to my wife and daughter. He went to my home, which is on sub-urbs of Bangalore, took them on a test drive. Both of them fall in love with the car much and were pretty much impressed with the car.

Realizing the Dream
So finally decided to go ahead and book the car. Now the question, on the color. My choice was black (my old car is also black) and wife picked white. After lot of persuasion, I convinced my wife to agree for black (which she even now tells to every one, that I made her to say yes to black) by showing her some sample pictures posted in team bhp forum (Thanks to Sameer from Team BHP for posting amazing black pictures of cruze). Place a order for CRUZE - LT. I did not go for the higher end as the safety features were primary for me and the rest were secondary. The safety features are exactly identical in both the versions. The LT version does not have the following:

• Does not have cruise control : Where can we use the it on Indian roads
• No sun roof: My wife is disappointed
• Key less entry: Good feature, but will not be missed

So got the car and enjoying the beauty of the car and its power. On day 3 took it outer ring road, along with another friend of mine, and we tested it like crazy. Could take it 150 KMPH and the car was rock solid on the road. I did not realize a speed breaker, when I was driving at high speed, my fried pointed the hump with a signal, I rammed my leg onto the brake, and the car just came to halt, without a single sign of skidding. Amazing experience, I am proudly satisfied with my car. Looking for the opportunity to take my car on long drive to my hometown, testing it on the NH7.
Posting some of the images taken on first day of my new car: