Chevrolet Spark (Velvet Sparky): 20,000+ Kms Review

[appus]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Yeah. Third option ! Think of 3" LCD for reverse camera & 7" LCD on Mirror , 5" LCD / phone on windshield ! DROP THE IDEA OF 3" LCD if you have a plan for navigation fixed.

Make sure you have an AV input for the navigation (some say - you have to use thru software etc). Confirm first before buying!

 

[sethumurugan]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Freinds.

Finally yesterday I completed the long time pending task. Fixed Dash Board covers.

This was included in the package for fixing


Dash before fixing the covers.




















Dash with Covers



























​

After fixing it did n't have time to go for a drive. But did a small test drive and found this cover is completely satisfactory. Small reflection is still there because of air vents in the dash which is kept open in the cover.

Only worry is how to clean this if necessary. But being cool since it may not happen tomorrow. it has its own time. So forget about it and enjoy the reflection free driving

 

[Dr MUDHAN]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Dear Sethu

At last you have achieved. I understand your difficulties because of the beige dashboard.
Cleaning will not be a problem. Periodical vacuum cleaning will take care such material.

I wish you should have seen this video before or even you could have thought of a mat finish carbon fiber vinyl wrapping that would have made everything easier.

Of course, it needs a neat job by a professional.

How To Recover A Dashboard - YouTube

Lot of your hard work had gone into it.

Enjoy your driving.

 

[Gurrala74]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

@sethu

Nice work man finally, I have one small doubt from my side. Is that material okay as my worry is that while AC is ON a small particles(pores) of the material get mixed in the air inside and we may inhale them, so you could have gone for the one suggested by Dr.Mudhan which is also easy for cleaning

 

[sethumurugan]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Dear Sethu

At last you have achieved. I understand your difficulties because of the beige dashboard.
Cleaning will not be a problem. Periodical vacuum cleaning will take care such material.

I wish you should have seen this video before or even you could have thought of a mat finish carbon fiber vinyl wrapping that would have made everything easier.

Of course, it needs a neat job by a professional.

How To Recover A Dashboard - YouTube




Lot of your hard work had gone into it.

Enjoy your driving.

I thought about it sir but do not know where and how to do it. More over due to my tight work schedule I was unable to go out for hunting such kind of things. Even today I want to change my parcel trey with some customization but could n't do it.

@sethu

Nice work man finally, I have one small doubt from my side. Is that material okay as my worry is that while AC is ON a small particles(pores) of the material get mixed in the air inside and we may inhale them, so you could have gone for the one suggested by Dr.Mudhan which is also easy for cleaning

Hope Dr Mudhan had come earlier.

Regarding dust, Yes even I have that doubt. But let us see. First of all am happy to find one thing like this. You know how many month I was searching for a solution for this specific problem.

Update 1
I have been to A.H Traders, official dealers for Galio India (only manufacturer has Spark specific accessories, not only spark all vehicle/brand specific accessories) and enquired about the following items and got the rate for them

OVRM blink covers
Rs. 1100 per pair
Only Chrome is available (since it is slow moving they dont have body color covers)

Fog Lamps
Rs. 750 per paid
Labor, wires and other kit Rs. 300

The person in the shop (must be owner) said if I bring the car early morning the above accesories can be fixed in front of the shop itself with some person organised by them. The place is really congested place in G.P Road. It is not even in the maid road.

But he suggested that I can get it and approach any work shop and they will help me.

Update 2.
My sparky completed 2 years with us. Today is 3rd year starting. We love the car.

 

[hari.d]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Sethu sir..

Just now gone through the complete thread.Excellent review and the information about the mileage tester device is pretty useful.

You can also check the exactly how the AC eats up into the fuel by not using the AC for a week or so completely. My safari gave 10.5 km/l in city with AC, when the ac is not working for couple of weeks i got around 13 km/l in the same driving conditions.With the current weather you can really test this without AC.

I see in the 1st page of this thread the cost of xenos HU is 5500 but i didnt find anywhere about the Roof LCD cost or the installation details. Am i missed reading in the thread?

 

[sethumurugan]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Sethu sir..

Just now gone through the complete thread.Excellent review and the information about the mileage tester device is pretty useful.

Thank you hari for your Kind words

You can also check the exactly how the AC eats up into the fuel by not using the AC for a week or so completely. My safari gave 10.5 km/l in city with AC, when the ac is not working for couple of weeks i got around 13 km/l in the same driving conditions.With the current weather you can really test this without AC.

I wanted to do this but am scared of dust. If we don't use AC we need to roll down our windows which will be red carpet for dust inside the car which I do not like. So I have never switched of AC and rolled down windows when am in city. But whenever I am in highway I do try this. yes I get more FE when I switch of AC. And that too when am cruising in less speed. If am cruising more than 90 I will surely roll up the windows since keeping windows down at that speed will be hindrance for car movement due to opposite air and that will reduce the FE.

I see in the 1st page of this thread the cost of xenos HU is 5500 but i didnt find anywhere about the Roof LCD cost or the installation details. Am i missed reading in the thread?

you have not missed anything. Actually I got that roof LCD monitor for Rs.2000 in 2008 when I first got my M800. I went for fixing the accesories in a shopt near Satyam theatre. I wanted to have DVD HU and buy monitor later. So during the process the guy offered me this roof monitor for a discount. This monitor was used by that shop as display piece. He said it was not used much except for demo purpose. That is how I got that. At that time i got JVC HU.

When I sold my M800 I just took this monitor alone (My kids enjoy watching movies in long drives) and re-fixed it in sparky.

As of now one input is not working. So am looking for 3 Inch monitor exclusively for my reverse camera (even a used one will be okie)

 

[hari.d]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Most of the e-commerce sites sell reverse camera with 3 or 4 inch monitor as less as 2.7 k but not the monitor alone.Also the camera is available separately for 1k.

 

[venkythaniks]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

My sparky completed 2 years with us. Today is 3rd year starting. We love the car.

Sethu Sir,
The picture shows how truly you love your car and consider a part of your family. Wish you many more happy miles and enjoyable moments with your car.

 

[sethumurugan]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Most of the e-commerce sites sell reverse camera with 3 or 4 inch monitor as less as 2.7 k but not the monitor alone.Also the camera is available separately for 1k.

ya I know. Shop near my house is ready to give me the monitor alone (even though it is set) but he is asking me Rs. 2300 for that (with Camera it costs around Rs.3500)

But today I found Monitor alone for Rs.1100 in OLX. Let me check.

Sethu Sir,
The picture shows how truly you love your car and consider a part of your family. Wish you many more happy miles and enjoyable moments with your car.

Thank you Venky. Yes we all love sparky. I have some bitter side of my sparky (FE) but apart from that she delivers what we want. In-fact I tried to take delivery of sparky either on 4th or 7th of October. Some how it did n't happen. But you know one thing. I booked sparky by paying Rs.10000 on my b'day, that is 7th Oct 2011

 

[venkythaniks]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Thank you Venky. Yes we all love sparky. I have some bitter side of my sparky (FE) but apart from that she delivers what we want. In-fact I tried to take delivery of sparky either on 4th or 7th of October. Some how it did n't happen. But you know one thing. I booked sparky by paying Rs.10000 on my b'day, that is 7th Oct 2011

Yes Sir. I have browsed your entire thread and saw your efforts in identifying the root cause of your lower FE. As long as your car did not give you any unwanted issues, headaches or stress, that's all we want.

 

[hari.d]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

ya I know. Shop near my house is ready to give me the monitor alone (even though it is set) but he is asking me Rs. 2300 for that (with Camera it costs around Rs.3500)

But today I found Monitor alone for Rs.1100 in OLX. Let me check.



Thank you Venky. Yes we all love sparky. I have some bitter side of my sparky (FE) but apart from that she delivers what we want. In-fact I tried to take delivery of sparky either on 4th or 7th of October. Some how it did n't happen. But you know one thing. I booked sparky by paying Rs.10000 on my b'day, that is 7th Oct 2011

@sethu sir

Found your ad in OLX . Lets hope for a good deal. Even am planning to change my stock alphine CD player to some DVD player. If am able to get a roof LCD with USB support that also will be fine as mostly will be using pen drive for movies or video files.

To overcome the rear view getting blocked by the roof LCD, planning to get the reverse camera output as default to monitor all the time instead of getting displayed only on engaging the reverse gear.

Any idea or thoughts on this? I don't want to spend much on this as this is not needed as a necessary but only for the occasional highway trips.

 

[sethumurugan]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

@sethu sir

Found your ad in OLX . Lets hope for a good deal.

Wow that is quick find even though you are not a seller.

Even am planning to change my stock alphine CD player to some DVD player. If am able to get a roof LCD with USB support that also will be fine as mostly will be using pen drive for movies or video files.

To overcome the rear view getting blocked by the roof LCD, planning to get the reverse camera output as default to monitor all the time instead of getting displayed only on engaging the reverse gear.

Any idea or thoughts on this? I don't want to spend much on this as this is not needed as a necessary but only for the occasional highway trips.

Ok its good that you are also interested in this.

Assume what ever you have planed as such is Plan A

• Roof Top LCD screen for DVD output. You pls plan for 10" or 12" for your kind of vehicle. if you go below that it wont look nice. Now a days roof top screen comes with USB/DVD player (so you need not to buy a separate dvd player)
• Small LCD screen for rear view screen and connecting it permanently with camera to overcome rear view block due to roof top screen.
• In the above case you need to buy a roof top LCD screen
• if you do not want in-built DVD player, you need to buy a decent DVD hu
• for rear view you need to buy reverse camera you need to buy along with small screen. Now a days both put together it will be somewhere around 3.5k
• Easily you can keep the camera and screen on always and you can use that as rear view monitor (and I think it will be effective with more clarity than rear view mirror.

Plan B

• You can buy a DVD HU
• You can buy pair of head rest with LCD
• In this case you need not to worry about rear view block in rear view mirror. If you feel the front seat passenger also want to see the movie you can buy a small screen alone and fix it in dash or there are screen which come with sun shade

Plan C

• Now a days LCD screen comes as rear view mirror which can be fixed in rear view mirror itself. Since it comes with UCB you need not to buy anything seprately. And that comes with camera too.
• you might need to buy Rear view miriror mountable screen with camera Used to watch movie as well reverse direction
• small LCD screen for viewing reverse (this can be kept before driver side)
• But I heard the rear view (used as glass) when LCD screen is off, not good.

You can think about it.

--

BTW, friends when I gave three options for my reverse camera most of you were suggesting to go with LCD screen with GPS.

First of all I could n't find one with that capability. More over all GPS is comes around with the minimum price tag of 6k. Since I can not invest as of now, I have planned to go for a LCD screen first. I got the following on dealxtreeme.


Cost

• Rs. 1630.54

Advantages

• Air suction holder to fix in windshield
• Need not to buy separate mobile holder

Dis-advantages

• 4:3 display
• No Sun shade
• More price
• Small screen

Cost

• Rs. 1353.04

Advantages

• 16:9 display
• Sun shade
• Less price
• Bigger screen

Dis-advantages

• I cant fix it in dash board since already I have dash board cover
• No Air suction holder to fix in windshield
• Need to buy a mobile holder

Waiting for your suggestions friends.

 

[hari.d]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

@sethu sir,

You can go for the 1st one as that is compact also you can place that in the right bottom corner of the windshield.Just next to the steering so that it doesn't get disturbed and also will get a nice rear view without strain.

Fixing in your spark as like the below will be good(My suggestion)



In my car i already have 5.5 inch rear view monitor fixed in the mirror as below(Fixed already when i bought the vehicle ). I think i can go for the roof lcd with USB support alone.

 

[sethumurugan]

Re: Velvet Sparky - Review After 10,000 Kms on Odometer

Thanks hari.

How about the second one with mobile holder? Am asking this since when you compare the advantages and disadvantages of both, second one seems to good. Hope when i get it along with mobile holder and fix it there (even I thought of the same place) how it will work out?

Tell me which is better 4:3 or 16:9?