Reading this thread for the first time and reading it from the beginning. Here there is a real big war going around between 1.3,1.6 and 1.8. Wanted to add my opinion , may be i will be wrong.
I didn't know the word "under-power" before reading these pakwheeler thread. I drove my father's Xli black in color (model 2007) for five year that is 2007 to 2012. Kept that car in stock except its tyre and rim for better braking and grip on someone advice. That was our first new zero meter car and at that time we can only afford Xli in our budget. Drove it for 5 years and never knew that it was an under power car.
We sold Xli in 2012 and bought Silver Gli 2012 manual model and drove it for two years. Our budget was only for Gli manual. We drove it and never felt that it was an underpower car because we didn't know that car could be an underpower.
We sold Gli in Sept 2014 and wanted to have an automatic car for an ease in driving for my father. We go for Gli A/T. This time to buy a new car we have a color issue. Already own Black civic so no black. Family didn't like Silver so no silver. I wanted to have super white, it was not available in Gli so we decided to go for white Gli with heavy heart and booked it for January Month. One week after booking my father changed the color to black.Unfortunately something went wrong and delivery month of Gli went to February but we need car desperately in January.
Someone in dealership advice us that go for Altis 1.6 and dealership can give it in January and we can sell Gli for an own of 2 lac when it will be available in feb and can compensate extra amount that we need to give over Gli to get Altis 1.6. I was getting super white color, father was getting car in january so perfect thing and we said fine. Still didn't know that a car could be underpower as all cars are serving their purposes . They take you from one point to another point.Never knew 1.3 could be underpower and never took the decision of getting 1.6 on underpower thing. I came on pakwheerler to find some best goodies that i can install in my car but found that i drove underpower car for seven years without any complain.
Moral: To buy a car, is all depends upon individual priorities . We have a budget of Xli then Gli then Altis 1.6 in the price rang of Gli A/T so our priority was budget that we can afford. Tell me one good person who can afford Grande and bought Xli with no reason. Tell me one good new car which cannot go to Monal ( Hill place in islamabad ) and stuck in middle . So why are we fighting that this is underpower and this is not. Discuss some good installments , taking care of a car and other things as many other threads are doing.