ALTO K10 REVIEW

I was never interested in driving cars. If not for someone in the family to drive me around, I had my trusty Scooty Pep+, back in college and of course, there have always been auto-rickshaws plying around aplenty and now we have Ola and Uber. In fact, I detest go-carting too. (My grandmother always beat my timing in it!)

Once I turned 18, my parents sent me for driving lessons and I got my Driver’s License. My parents had just bought a Hyundai Accent back then and whatever little enthusiasm I had towards driving was dampened by their overly protective attitude ....................................................... towards the car! And the wispy, pocket-sized DL found its way into the back of my cupboard, to be buried under my clothes forever ........

Or so I thought........ 7 years later, I got married and my father-in-law had me dig it out. Despite protests stating that I knew to drive and it’s just that I ‘chose’ not to drive, he had me enrolled in driving lessons much to the jubilation of my parents. On the last day of my driving lesson, I found out that I was pregnant and my joy knew no bounds. This meant I now had a valid excuse to skip driving. The DL went back into my cupboard.

As time passed by, my mother kept insisting that I start driving and she often cited the example of her 70-year-old neighbour, a woman (though I fail to understand why the gender or age should matter!) who drove a car.

Three years back, as I was walking to a bakery close to my office to get a mid-morning snack, a car from the Maruti Driving School passed by and I may have continued looking at the car because the Instructor pulled over next to me and gave me his card. I went and told this to my father-in-law and the next week I found myself getting registered, at their center!

At this point in time, I must inform you all that I was TERRIFIED of driving for the following reasons:

1. I found it very difficult to coordinate my limbs whilst using the accelerator, brake and clutch and also change gears simultaneously
2. If the car were to halt, it would take me many attempts to get the car moving
3. I couldn’t estimate distances from within the car
4. (Let’s not even talk about reversing and parallel parking!)

Maruti Driving School offers a Personal and Corporate course and apart from learning to drive an actual car on the roads, the package includes theory sessions and driving a simulator! I had an excellent instructor and I’ve been recommending their institute to all those looking to enroll themselves in driving classes.

With this newly gained confidence, I took to driving our Wagon R around our office until, one day, my husband asked me to take the car up the ramp and I promptly rammed it into a pillar. Though there wasn’t any major damage, I now had another excuse to stop driving.

Years passed by and my father-in-law and mother slowly began losing hope. Each time they saw a lady driver pass by, they would look at me and sadly shake their heads. The Driver’s License began fraying at the edges. (Besides being theatrical, I also have a flair for being dramatic, so kindly bear with me.)

And then, in 2017, something changed. I was no longer patient when it came to hailing autos. If I didn’t get one within 5 minutes of standing out in the hot, hot sun, I’d cross my arms, tap my foot and give passengers of occupied autos dirty looks.

And to cut a long story short, my parents got me an Alto K10 automatic car for Diwali. My father handed over the keys to me with an “I hope you are going to drive it!”

Skip and I have named my car “Kutti Monster” (Kutti meaning tiny in Coorgi)

REVIEW BEGINS HERE: My father has always preferred Maruti cars probably because his first car was a Maruti and also because of their widely located service centers. We did explore other automatic cars but finally settled on a Maruti Suzuki. The choice was then between a Celerio and an Alto. We chose the Alto, because it was smaller in size and with the crazy traffic in Bangalore, I’d wanted a car as tiny as possible to avoid getting into scrapes, literally and figuratively!

Car details:

On Road price: Rs 5 lakhs *

Model: Alto K10 VXI AMT (O)

Colour: Silky Silver

Mileage delivered – 15 kmpl

Features: AC, airbag, CD player, stereo, power steering, power windows (front seat windows only)

For more details, you may click on this link – Maruti Suzuki Alto K10

Readers, you have to bear in mind, I had last driven a car in 2014 and now, here I was with my very own car waiting to be driven. I drove the car for a week accompanied by our driver and even at that point in time, I recall telling our driver that I would never be able to drive it alone. However, after a fortnight, I decided to take the car out by myself and the 5-minute trip that I undertook was one of the most nerve-racking.  The ‘L’ sticker clearly did not deter rash drivers and enthusiastic two-wheelers from wanting to literally rub shoulders with me!

I’ve been driving for two months now and I believe I can expertly manoeuvre the ruthless and unforgiving traffic in Bangalore. I can reverse easily and also parallel-park on most days. I am still not skillful enough to be able to park between two cars but I’ll get there soon enough.

For those who are unaware, there are only two pedals in an automatic car. There is no clutch and no constant changing of gears as there are only three modes – Drive, Neutral and Reverse in the Alto K10.

Here’s a pic of the car gear

Left- Manual mode, Right - Automatic mode 

You need to operate the brake and accelerator pedals with just one foot. Under no circumstances are you to use both your feet, it will cause the car to jerk. Once you start the car on neutral, you need to shift it to either ‘D’ (Drive) or ‘R’(Reverse) mode. You need to press the Brake pedal fully to the floor, to change into these two gears. Once you have started the car, it is constantly in motion. This is what I like the best about this car. It never stalls (especially at traffic signals) making reversing, driving in bumper to bumper traffic and driving on slopes much, much easier. For the absent-minded, this could be a con, because if you lift your foot off the brake, you would bump into the car ahead of you. But then, there’s always the handbrake and “neutral”.

The pick-up of the car is not very good and I have especially noticed this on speed-breakers.

Please note that auto transmission cars have lesser fuel efficiency as compared to their counterparts. So a mileage of 15 kmpl in a city with rush hour traffic all day long is good enough especially when compared to other hatchback auto cars.

Besides the automatic mode, the car also has a manual mode where you can change gears with just a little flick unlike in manual cars where you have to first calculate the angle at which the gear has to move, coordinate your un-flexible ankles between the clutch and break, have the wit to immediately switch to accelerator and do all this is in a fraction of a second. Pheew!

Kutti Alto is tiny, mind you and not ideal for long distance travelling not just because of the limited boot space but also lack of leg space at the rear seat (unless you have hobbit sized travel companions) but is just the ideal size to get a firm grip on driving and zip across congested roads while maintaining road discipline.

Since driving Kutti, I have driven the Range Rover (auto) and Bolero and Sunny (both manual)

Their next mission now is to get me enrolled in yoga classes! *eye-roll*