Compact SUVs: Hyundai Creta vs rivals

Compact SUVs are all the rage today, but where does ‘compact’ end and ‘full-size’ begin? It’s a pertinent question to start off this test because going by the strict definition of the term, the only compact SUV is the sub-four-metre Ford EcoSport. Yet the Duster falls under the compact SUV definition, so too the Creta, and that makes the EcoSport, Creta, Duster and its cousin the Terrano direct rivals despite not being in the same price range.
Now where does the S-Cross fit into this puzzle? To answer that let’s first ask ourselves, what is a crossover? Neither a hatchback nor an SUV but with traits of both, is it not? Logically then doesn’t the S-Cross go up against the Creta, particularly since it is priced in the same range, has similar packaging, and is front-wheel drive with no ambition of going off the road?
Then we have the XUV 500 that has always been a direct competitor of the Duster, has it not? Yet how can the XUV, which has three rows of seats, be classified as a compact SUV? How do you compare the EcoSport to the XUV 500? But at the same time how don’t you? Won’t a Creta buyer also look at the XUV – and vice versa – considering their similar pricing?
Welcome then to the most unlikely, yet most pertinent and relevant of comparison tests.

With all due respect to the Ford EcoSport, legitimately the first compact SUV in the country, it was the Renault Duster that actually kick-started the craze for small(ish) SUVs. Before that we had the Scorpio and Safari – lumbering beasts that had enough space for bodyguards to sit at the back with a rifle held tall between the knees, but neither had the composure nor the dynamics to appeal to an audience that had grown accustomed to it on their cars. The Duster changed everything.

Here was an SUV that you didn’t have to muscle around; an SUV that had excellent ride and almost-car-like handling; an SUV with lovely refinement and a gear-shift quality that could even be called slick; an SUV that didn’t use a ladder-frame chassis nor require you to use a ladder to climb into it. The Duster was the first front-wheel drive SUV in the country and the first with a monocoque chassis. It could take all the broken roads our monsoons threw at it and then some. And it delivered great fuel efficiency without sacrificing performance.

Before Renault could say s’il vous plait, sales of the Duster rocketed, delivering the French manufacturer their first real success story in India; in fact so successful has it been that the Duster now has more brand recall than Renault. It wasn’t without its flaws though – chief among them being the boring design, cheap (feeling) interiors and heavy clutch. And most of that has been addressed with the 2015 upgrade.

There’s a subtly reworked nose with more chrome (apparently, for us Indians, more chrome equals a more upmarket positioning), new alloys and better interior fittings. Small things like moving the power window switches to the doors, replacing those Logan-derived speedo and tacho dials with a more appealing three-pod design with chrome trimming and yellow needles, and a nice texture on the seats has reduced the perception of cost-cutting. However, soft-touch plastics are still conspicuous by their absence and the Maruti 800-style door locks are ridiculously dated. That said, there is this wonderful sense of honest engineering to the Duster that is at the core of its appeal. The interiors feel like they are built to last. There is no overwrought styling or overabundance of features (even though it now has a touch-screen navigation unit). You use a key to start it, no stop-start. And you still get the sense you are in a proper SUV, not a car that has had its ride height and seating position raised by an inch for a faux-SUV feel.
The same can’t be said of the EcoSport.

It was the first SUV to duck under the excise-mandated four-metre length stipulation and that made it the most affordable SUV in the country. Together with the eye-catching styling it led to lines – literally! – outside Ford showrooms and waiting lists that stretched to nine months. It really did sell like hot cakes and it is only now that the competition is catching up.

Which brings me to the question – can you really compare the Duster to the EcoSport? And the honest answer is no. While SUVs are meant to encourage an outdoorsy lifestyle, the EcoSports’ natural habitat is the city. The likes of the i20 Active, Cross Polo and Avventura are more its direct rivals than the Duster – both in terms of size and also in its DNA which is very obviously hatchback derived. In the EcoSports’ case there’s no hiding its Fiesta-based underpinnings. It starts with the steering that is the most enthusiastic, direct and feelsome of everything in this test. It genuinely feels sporty and eager with an enthusiasm for quick direction changes and a communicative nature that makes hunting corners quite a lot of fun. The chassis also has a sporty edge to it with good fun to be had. It is great till eight-tenths, but push it to its limit and the compromises of jacking up the ride height become evident. The handling isn’t as sharp as the Fiesta, nor is the ride as compliant. The dynamics aren’t properly resolved which makes it’s on-limit handling a bit of a worry and that quickly makes you back off.

From the inside too there’s no doubting its provenance. The Fiesta wasn’t a very accommodating car and, consequently, comfort is at a premium in the EcoSport. Five adults are a squeeze and good luck finding space for their luggage. The design of the dashboard too, with its plethora of buttons, is from the pre-smartphone era when the Motorola flip-phone was a craze.

The EcoSport should get extra points for the excellent 1.0-litre, three-cylinder, direct-injection, turbo-petrol EcoBoost engine but off take has been so weak they’ve nearly stopped production of that variant. It might have been a different story, had an automatic transmission been offered, going by the example of the Polo GT TSI. However there still is the 1.5-petrol with a twin-clutch automatic, which is the cheapest automatic SUV you can buy today. And the manual petrol EcoSport is the most affordable compact SUV – by a wide margin at that. Until Maruti Suzuki launches its sub-four-metre SUV later this year the EcoSport still has no direct competition. It is still in a class of its own.

‘Caution!’ yells the XUV. The grass is wet, ESP is switched off, and the handbrake being tugged at to get a sideways shot. And, in a deep-throated voice, the XUV’s unique voice command system yells out ‘Caution!’ If somebody had a sense of humor they’d follow it up with, ‘you’re not Gaurav Gill’!
But let’s start with the Terrano and Duster, and the rather vexing question: how do you choose between the two? I guess it boils down to which dealership is closest to you and your personal taste in terms of styling – because behind the different badges, these two are bang identical.

Till a couple of months ago, the Terrano would have had a slight edge. It was the fresher, less boring design; some more chrome on the nose and a black-and-beige interior to appeal to our notion of what constitutes upmarket. But now, with the Duster’s facelift, I think the pendulum swings back to Renault. Personally I prefer the Duster’s more honest styling. It is a rugged, no-nonsense SUV and I like the fact that it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. But most of all, the improvements on the inside give the Duster an edge. Jump inside the Terrano and you are greeted by speedo and tacho dials passed on from the Logan; dials that looks rather cheap and unappealing. Somehow the grey-and-black trim of the Duster also looks nicer than the black-and-beige of the Terrano, round air-con vents are more in keeping with the SUV space and you also get steering-mounted audio and phone controls and a touch-screen navigation-equipped stereo on the Duster.

Above all, if you shell out an additional lakh of rupees, you can have all-wheel drive on the Duster, and that takes it capabilities to a different level altogether. The thing with the Duster is that its platform (derived from the Logan, you should know) is surprisingly capable. In basic front-wheel drive form it can do stuff that no soft-roader, apart from the Yeti can, and then you throw AWD into the mix and even our repository of all things off-road, Ouseph, raises an eyebrow in surprise. Where the Terrano (and the regular FWD Duster by extension) finds the going impossible thanks to the persistent rain, wet grass and challenging ditches the AWD Duster (and, by extension, the AWD-equipped Terrano that is due in a few months) goes on without a struggle. With Off Road Chacko behind the wheel the Duster AWD can go over obstacles that even proper ladder-frame, low-ratio equipped SUVs like the Fortuner have to work hard over – and that is properly impressive.

In theory the XUV 500 should have similar capabilities, equipped as it is with a similar on-demand torque-sensing centre differential, but he overall package isn’t as capable as the Duster. With the XUV the clutch heats up quickly and slips back into front-wheel drive in a few minutes and that can be a problem when you’re driving in the desert for longer periods. It is also one of the reasons why the XUV taking part in the Indian Rally Championship is now only front-wheel drive (and still whupping the backsides of every other car in the series!).

But that’s hardly a deal breaker to be honest, if you want to go off-roading you will buy a Thar or a 4WD Scorpio. No, the bigger issue with the XUV is that it doesn’t feel as refined or well put together as the Duster/Terrano twins. The Duster is hardly the standard bearer of interior plastic quality but the Renault still manages to be a clear step ahead in terms of quality and even more so on fit and finish. With this facelift the XUV has a nicer colour scheme and more equipment (electric seat adjust, sun roof and start-stop among others) but overall more is required of Mahindra to match the class benchmarks.

In terms of capacity, power and torque, the 2.2-litre mHawk engine is a clear step ahead of everything else; chirruping the front wheels is easy enough and it has a great spread of torque (like everything else here the XUV is natively front-wheel drive, and has a monocoque construction). But what the Mahindra engine lacks is mechanical refinement, the 6-speed gearbox has long throws and a rubbery shift, and together with its massive proportions the XUV ends up feeling heavy and ponderous (wonder how Gaurav Gill and his ilk rally this!).

In contrast the Duster is lighter on its feet, nimbler and ultimately more eager to get a move on. It also has better ride quality, better handling and far better road manners (thanks to multi-link rear suspension compared to the torsion beam on the FWD Duster and Terrano). A big plus is the 1.5 dCI engine that is now under the bonnet of as many cars as Maruti Suzuki’s 1.3 DDiS (though the latter’s volumes are a zillion times more than Renault’s). The motor is refined enough, at 110bhp it is powerful enough to keep pace with the XUV and is so low geared you can easily start off in second gear. The heavy clutch action has now been sorted out (the Terrano has yet to get this upgrade) and the torque curve is meaty enough for a proper SUV feel.
That’s the thing with the three SUVs on this page – they feel like SUVs, not hatchbacks that have been turned into SUVs. The driving position of the Duster and its meaty steering wheel give you a proper SUV-feel. The XUV is even more of a man’s SUV: the steering wheel rim is fatter, the driving position more commanding, there’s more space on the inside, it looks way more aggressive from the outside and it has that third row of seats. For many the seven seats and aggressively manly demeanour seals the deal in favour of the XUV.

But if you don’t need that third row, the Duster is a no-brainer really. It’s been three years since it was launched in India, the styling remains boringly utilitarian and there remain frustratingly cheap bits and pieces but despite it all, the competition has yet to catch up. Now, though, there’s the Creta…

The newbies

Hyundai Creta & Maruti Suzuki S-Cross

How do you compare a crossover to an SUV? It was a question we asked ourselves right at the top of our S-Cross review last month but drive the two back-to-back and the similarities will surprise you.

For starters both are derived from hatchbacks. In the Creta’s case there is no escaping the i20 – even though the dash is designed differently and you’re forced to sit higher there’s an immediate sense of familiarity from the steering wheel to the climate control switches and even the seats, stalks and instrument cluster are all the same. Even the shoulder space is identical though, with the wheelbase stretched out by 20mm, the rear knee room is a vast improvement, so too the boot. Also, the same quirks of the i20 remain – the doors don’t lock automatically, there’s no distance to empty readout on the otherwise comprehensive trip computer, the steering doesn’t adjust for reach and the centre armrest should have been a little bigger so as to rest your elbow comfortably. But, and that’s a testament to the i20’s excellence, nothing feels cheap and not befitting of an SUV that costs nearly 15 lakh rupees on the road.

In the S-Cross’s case, the cabin really is all-new though you can never escape the overwhelming sense of familiarity with other Maruti Suzuki cars. I think the dash is a little more stylish than the Creta’s but overall the S-Cross has way too many hard, shiny, black plastics whereas the Creta gets more soft-touch plastics and a better colour tone to give it that more upmarket feel.

That premium feel is enhanced by engine refinement which is a definite plus point on the Creta. For a manufacturer that until a decade ago didn’t make their own diesel engines, the progress Hyundai have made with oil-burners is astonishing. The 1.6 common-rail diesel in the Creta feels the most eager to rev, gives the Creta the best performance in this test, has the least turbo lag and is the most refined. This is the best powertrain in this test. It is so good, in fact, that it makes the slow-shifting automatic transmission feel rather better than it should – the meaty torque curve masking the dull responses of the slush box.

The 1.6 diesel sits at the top of the Creta range that also includes a 1.6 petrol (lacks the zing of the diesel) and 1.4 diesel (which we have yet to sample). The S-Cross gets two diesel engines (no petrols) – the DDiS 200 that is Maruti’s excellent 1.3-litre motor and the DDiS 320 1.6 diesel (200 and 320 reference the torque) that is imported from Fiat (thus explaining the uncompetitive price of the top-of-the-line crossover). We’ve only sampled the 1.6 diesel and, on paper, it has the legs of the others in this test. With 118bhp and a kerb weight of 1275kg it also has a very competitive power to weight ratio. But that’s on paper. On the road the 1.6 motor suffers from serious turbo lag. Despite using a variable geometry turbocharger, below 2000rpm, the engine is lifeless. And once it spins above that mark all hell breaks loose. There’s torque steer in second gear and, on damp road, even in third gear when the engine comes on boost and the S-Cross rockets down the road. Up the road that leads up to Lavasa, on the outskirts of Pune the engine is great fun to thrash, aided by a lovely short throw gearshift, and a chassis that is the sportiest in this test. That’s where the genes of the Swift are evident; the S-Cross has the most tied-down package of the SUVs here, feels the most car-like to throw around on a set of twisties, is the most involving and engaging. It also has the best driving position.

But, give it the beans, and the S-Cross gets really noisy. And that turbo lag makes it very painful to drive in the city. One instant you’re waiting, waiting, waiting for the engine to get going, the next you’re rocketing at an alarming pace towards the bus in front. Worse, on a steep slope, it is a major pain to get moving and you really have to rev the nuts off of it so as not to stall and make a fool of yourself. Another thing we noticed is that when you shift aggressively from first to second and second to third, there is a momentary flat spot before the engine gets on the boil again. It’s not like the engine is off boost because the revs are around 3000rpm but there is this strange hesitation, like the motor is asking whether you’re sure you want all those 118 horses deployed, before cracking along. It kills the 0-100kmph time and is just weird; the ECU calibration does need some re-working.

So the S-Cross might be the sportiest in this test (it does need better tyres that can do the chassis justice though) but the Creta is never far behind. Hyundai have taken note of all our criticism on soggy handling: the i20 was good, the i20 Active even better and the Creta raises the bar yet again. Gone is the soft, soggy, wallowy road manners we’ve come to associate with Hyundai – the Creta has a slightly firm edge to the ride that gives it a European feel. It is still compliant at low speeds and far from uncomfortable, but the trade-off is that as you build speed the suspension stays admirably flat and refuses to get troubled by bumpy roads. The ride quality, in fact, is very close to the Duster’s benchmark. And the handling is very close to the bar set by the S-Cross. There’s good front-end grip, good bite and not much body roll. The thing Hyundai now needs to sort out is the steering. It is not only lifeless but requires way too many minute steering corrections at speed that robs the driver of the confidence to keep it pegged on fast motorways. And, with 126bhp, the Creta is capable of some serious speeds (in manual form also accelerates the most rapidly to 100kmph).
On the spaciousness front the S-Cross is slightly wider though the longer wheelbase of the Creta gives it better overall space (including boot space). On features too both are equally matched with start-stop, touch-screen navigation and climate control (the S-Cross also gets leather seats). Neither gets all-wheel drive even though internationally both are available with it. And the Creta’s biggest plus point is that it has an automatic transmission option.

So what do you drive home in? If it’s sportiness you are after the S-Cross will put the biggest smile on your face. But you have to be in the mood for it, otherwise the turbo lag is just way too much, refinement isn’t as good and there’s no way to justify the price premium over the Creta. Not too many like the styling of the S-Cross either though personally I can’t find too much fault with it. In fact I like that it is different, a genuine crossover in a sea of sameness. That said, Indians like SUVs and the very fact that it is different could prove to be its Achilles heel.

Conclusion-

The six we have here couldn’t be more different, or more similar! The Terrano and Duster are identical but the Renault nudges ahead courtesy the recent facelift and AWD option. Plus it will get an automatic transmission very soon. The EcoSport still has no genuine rival in its price band (you have to stretch by `2 lakh for the entry-level Creta) but its beginning to feel its age and with Maruti’s sub-four-meter SUV due in a couple of months it will have its work cut out. The XUV makes a strong case for itself with its macho styling and third row of seats but overall refinement and fit-finish isn’t in the same ballpark. And if you want something that is different, sporty, and has the increased ground clearance of an SUV but does not look like an SUV, you should walk into a NEXA showroom and experience the S-Cross.
Ultimately though, it is the Creta that sticks its nose ahead in this test. It is an SUV but with none of the compromises inherent in SUVs – the ride and handling is in fact better than the (already very good) i20 that it is based on, engine performance and refinement are excellent, nothing feels cheap or built-to-a-cost and the styling hits all the right notes. If you’re looking for something that feels more like an SUV and less like a hatchback you’d be best off sticking with the Duster. Everybody else can form an orderly queue outside the nearest Hyundai dealership.