@salarzae, @rollonbigmama, @storm, @bango
Well, I have heard enough of supporting and non-supporting views on my thread... Let me introduce myself here. I am a PhD doctor in engineering, did my bachelors at Manchester University, graduate studies at KTH Sweden and later went to Polytechnic University, Italy for obtaining doctorate degree.
I have worked in FIAT, served as Trainee engineer in Ericsson-Ferrari project and was consultant at Audi for one year. I was amazed to see the reaction, knowledge and views of my countrymen.
If I claim that I have driven more models of cars in one year at Fiat (Italy) than all of you combined, then it won't be exaggeration. Every day I used to test drive, ongoing models and upcoming models of several brands (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Audi, VW) as my job was to find discrepancies in their navigation, maneuvering and temperature control systems.
We used to indicate this line on every brochure of each car which has ABS (that ABS brake system will take longer distance to brake on wet, muddy and sandy roads) due to its nature of operation. The only thing good about ABS is when u r making an effort to pull your car on left or right to avoid accident, while braking hard, ABS will maintain control of front tyres, hence driver can turn the car safely. Otherwise on non-abs cars, tyres will be locked and tail spin will happen on higher speeds. In reality, such incidents don't happen (very rarely).
Crux of my discussion is, having ABS in a car, doesn't mean one can race on streets and think he would be safe when he hits the brakes. ABS only mitigates 5% or less chances of accidents on roads, however 65% accidents can be avoided just by keeping safe distance from front car.
Now coming back to my decision of buying XLI, well first of all, it's my choice, so nobody should even raise an eyebrow why is he going for XLI... I had my reasons, two weeks delivery time... against 4 months delivery time of GLI. And if I didn't like it, I can sell it on a profit of 1.5lacs to 2 lacs and then might easily book 1.6 Altis A/T.
I hope nobody will try to educate me now and just wish me luck for this new car. I will appreciate your good comments.
Engr. Dr. Suleman