What's the best car for the first-time buyers in India?
You have not clarified if you are a first time driver too. In any case, my universal advice to young drivers is to buy a car ONLY if you cannot do without one. Don't buy a car just because you wish to park it for weekend visits to malls or accasional outstation trips. A car standing in your parking lot doing nothing on a daily basis, remember, also costs money. The interest on investment, insurance, warranty maintenance.First thing to look for is the safety rating of the car. Maruti did not have any affordable car in their range that might be termed safe. This year, their new models have adhered to safety regulations which would come into force in India in October this year. “jaan hai to jahan hai “meaning if you have Life, the world is your pocket..Your first car need not be a second hand car. This is a wrong notion. Every so claimed expert driver in India has scratches and dents on their cars. There are plenty of stupid drivers out there on the road. After fifty years of driving I have found to my dismay, scratches on my car made by motorcyclists and vehicles in the parking lots. It's a helpless situation.My advice to you is to buy the Honda Amaze which would be launched soon in a new version. It is a safe car, reliable, easy to maintain and Honda unparalleled service.If you wish to buy a hatchback, the VW Polo is also a safe bet. It is very safe and equally reliable.
Is a Mazda 3 a good car and why?
The Mazda3 (no space = cooler) is a phenomenal car, almost regardless of your priorities as a driver.Let's skip how they look - you can develop your own opinion there.PerformanceNimble, planted, fun to drive. Excellent steering. You can get the rear wheels out if necessary, and it will only ever be your decision.My Mazda has the 2.5. It's sweet, smooth, and more than enough to get up to 120 or so without waiting too long. In literally every situation that is not a race from 60 mph to top speed, this car would dominate my old 280hp Lincoln Mark VIII.The automatic transmission is quite good. You can shift manually with flappy paddled or by moving the gearstick. Programming normally, while shifting manually, and while in Sport mode is excellent.The Sport Mode button is my car's clitoris.InteriorThe seats are faux leather, but it's nice faux leather. The contrast sticking looks gorgeous. The materials throughout are great - Mazda has fantastic attention to detail.Great sightlines, solid seat adjustability, back seat is road trip-friendly. The trunk is below average in size for this segment, or at least it seems like it.The switchgear feels GLORIOUS. Seriously. The infotainment control nob is in $100k Audi turf.TechBlind spot warning (audible and there's an icon on the side mirrors) is amazing and useful and I don't want to live without it.Backup camera is ditto.This car has a HUD. And Mazda was smart, because they made something quite low-tech that is insanely useful. You hardly notice it, except that you notice it not being there for the rest of your life in cars without one.The tach is front and center. All of the gauges are gorgeous and useful.The infotainment system is a bit too slow, but otherwise very intuitive and full-featured. You can get root access to it and remote into your car from a nearby Starbucks, as long as the engine's running. It's mostly JS and compiled C++ on there. You can change the background, enable Navigation system operation while the car is moving, open a dialog saying "Serious Shit" when the car hits 88 miles per hour, whatever. This is seriously cool. Durability:There was one month when I got 3 flats, but I live in Boston. Weirdly, that's the only time that ever happened.The paint is SERIOUSLY thin. Scratches will happen. The skin of the car isn't particularly thick, either.Nothing else has ever gone wrong.