It was a shoot day and we were out with our Jimny and Exter and I was at the wheel of the former first but then I realised I hadn’t driven the Exter since a few weeks so I took the wheel of the Hyundai on my way back from the shoot. I absolutely love the Jimny for its ride quality on Mumbai roads and it is my favourite car in our fleet, but driving a small hatchback like the Exter also made me realise how life is easy with a compact and comfortable car on our roads.
The Exter’s ride quality is soft and the suspension is quiet. It doesn’t feel too busy and the car is super easy to drive. Even after having it for 4 months, I still am not a fan of how it looks like from the rear though but I appreciate how Hyundai has managed to carve out so much headroom. The Exter’s interior is similar to that of the Grand i10 NIOS but gets a lot more features like a sunroof, factory-fitted dashcam, etc.
I am 6-feet tall and while I was content with the front seats for most part, I seriously feel it could have done with adjustable headrests because the fixed ones are quite small in size. As with most other long termers, I never really got a chance to sit in the rear seat for a long duration.
Our Exter replaced a Venue Turbo DCT which meant my team members had high expectations and the Exter didn’t really disappoint. It played the role of a support car on most of our shoots barring a few where I took the Kodiaq with me. The Exter did 4500 kms with us and delivered fuel efficiency figures of 12-13 km/l in the city and around 14-15 km/l on the highway and these numbers are at par with segment standards, resulting in a running cost of approximately Rs. 7 per km.
While we didn’t face any major issues with the Exter, the driver’s side power window stopped working on our car in the middle of its term with us while all the other windows were working perfectly fine. Unfortunately during this time the FASTAG that I was using with this car also got deactivated for some reason which meant we had to open the door to pay the toll every time.
Over the course of these months, I realised that the Exter is pretty much a no-nonsense car. Hyundai hasn’t skimped on features on this hatchback, it gets a neat interior and the engine is decent too. Good news for Exter buyers is that Hyundai is now offering a Hy-CNG variant which basically means the CNG tank placement has been moved to under the boot area so that much luggage space gets freed up. We bid farewell to our Exter recently and my team mates are sure missing this compact car. It’s a pretty neat all-rounder for someone looking for a practical option around the Rs. 10 lakh price bracket.
