Although our champagne coloured, classy looking, lovely travel companion – Toyota Corolla, that had always delivered us home safe, was 14 years old; there were very minor problems with it like squeaking brake pedals, scratches here and there, and chipped car paint in a few places. But this only meant that it was time for a replacement.
My family and I saw a comparison review of KIA Seltos Vs Hyundai Creta on the “Car and Bike Show” that airs on NDTV. Both these cars were quite similar in terms of engine, gearbox, safety features and transmission; it’s like they were cousins. Seltos was very sporty looking, and it had classic SUV proportions but Creta, on the other hand, was very very over-styled especially the cascade grill. Its odd proportions in the front also gave it a bulbous shape. Nevertheless, I booked a test drive for both immediately. Honestly, we were all more interested in Seltos than Creta. During the test drive, I realized that while Creta had a good ride quality for city traffic, it wasn’t as fun driving on a highway. Seltos steering was stiffer, heavy, and easy for handling. Since Seltos was the car with the edge we decided to buy it.
Now, I was really interested in exploring the used-car market but convincing my family wasn’t an easy task. However, I assured them that we will buy a used car only if everyone is on board, so we decided to try it out. I explored OLX, Spinny and CARS24. OLX has many unverified sellers. Many of the cars listed there were either overpriced for their model and make or underpriced which made me question the proper functioning of the cars. I checked the Spinny website, but they did not have KIA Seltos in automatic variant, and it seemed like they had less availability.
So, I booked an appointment with CARS24 to take a test drive of KIA Seltos and It took them 2 days to accommodate me. While I did not find any problems with the car, I got it inspected by a local mechanic and at the KIA service centre just to be on the safer side. CARS24 executives happily agreed to it and both the mechanics gave me a go-ahead sign. I still had many doubts regarding the engine, transmission, the underbody of the car and the braking systems for which CARS24 gave me a detailed inspection report of the car. I even reached out to the previous owner to know what kinds of problems it may have but everything seemed fine, so we decided to buy the car.
I completed all the formalities, turned in our old Corolla for a reasonable price, and paid the remaining balance for the Seltos and completed the transaction. CARS24 executives said that I could return the car within 7 days if at all I didn’t like it for any reason. The only delay was with the RC transfer, but it did happen.
As a seller of my old Corolla, they even covered me under their seller protection policy until its RC transfer was complete. I don’t know about other dealers in the used car marketplace, but I had a good experience with CARS24 during my transaction.
