The Citroën Basalt Costs 18 but is worth 9
I did an extended test drive of the Citroën Basalt petrol, both in the city and on the highway, and evaluated it against my requirements. Based on this, I wouldn’t buy it: it’s shockingly cheap for its price of 18 lakh, with the worst attention to detail I’ve seen for this price. It’s actually worth 9 lakh.
Stretch your budget to 26 and buy the Creta, or reduce your budget buy the Kiger for 15. Both would be better than spending 18 on this flimsy car.
The Basalt is a weird hybrid between a crossover1 and sedan body style. The bonnet and passenger cabin look like a crossover but the rear looks like a sedan. It’s as if you started designing a crossover, starting from the bonnet to the A pillar to the passenger cabin and then you change your mind: “No, no, I want a sedan!” so you bring the roofline down to have a sedan-like boot.
Here are the detailed strengths (+) and weaknesses (-):
- No 360-degree camera
- No front camera or sensors to warn if you’re about to hit a wall in front while parking.
+ Under-arm storage.
Comfort
- My stomach is pressed and/or the legroom is insufficient, depending on the seat position.
- The seat is not electrically adjustable.
- The seat adjustment is rough and makes noises as the ratchet catches at different positions.
+ The steering wheel doesn’t touch my knee.
- The steering wheel has tilt adjustment, not telescoping.
- The headroom is not great.
- The engine sounds rough and cheap, as 3 cylinders do.
- When I turned the car on, it made an annoying loud chime. The salesman told me this is how it’s going to be.
- The car beeped because I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt even before I started moving!
+ Great suspension — you don’t feel even significant bumps at 40 kph.
+ 80 kph doesn’t feel like 80!
- You have to press the accelerator a lot to get it to accelerate. Then there’s a lag, then it surges. Getting the car to accelerate slightly and smoothly is hard. Even moderate acceleration is accompanied by a lot of engine noise. It sounds like it’s a lot of effort for the engine, as if the engine is talking back: “You want me to accelerate slowly from 40 to 50 kph? Do you know how hard that is?”
- When stopping, it vibrates. It sounds like the engine is straining against the brake.
- When I was stopped, waiting at a red light, the car slightly vibrated for no apparent reason. Why I asked the salesman, he said it’s because the AC turned on, but it doesn’t happen in other cars, so I have to chalk that to the poor engineering of the Basalt.
- When I released the brake from a standstill, I could feel vibration and the gear mechanism enganing. This is flimsy. Even cars significantly cheaper than the Basalt are more refined.
Driving Experience
- When I reached the speed I wanted to, and took my foot off the accelerator, the car decelerated significantly for a few seconds.
- When you release the pedal, there’s play in it, and it makes a sound as it returns.
- The car has a torque converter, so it’s not as sporty as a DCT.
+ The steering is light.
- The inner rear-view mirror is cramped.
- It doesn’t show the current gear in auto mode. As a geek, I’m curious to see what the system is doing.
Cooling
- No ventilated seats.
- The glovebox is not cooled.
- You can’t start the AC remotely using an app.
- No rear window sunshades.
- The AC is uneven. When driving, my left arm was cooled more than your right, despite the right AC vent being open and angled correctly. This is hilarious! I’ve never seen such a incompetent AC, not even in my 6-lakh rupee Ritz from 2012!
+ The car shows the outside temperature.
+ The AC fan has 8 speeds, so you can adjust it precisely to your liking.
- No sunroof2.
Safety
+ Seat belt pretensioner with force limiter
+ ESC
+ EBD
+ DRLs
- No auto headlamps
- No multi-collision brake
- No emergency brake assist
- The car has 6 airbags, but they don’t protect your hip from a side impact.
- No ADAS features like blind spot monitoring or lane-keeping.
- The TPMS shows only a tick (if the pressure is good) or a cross (if it’s not). But you don’t know how bad it is. Is it only 1 psi out of range? If so, you should continue driving and see whether it’s a problem with the TPMS. Or is it 10 psi out of range? In this case, you should take it seriously. Without this information, you don’t know how to react to the warning, at which point the system is as good as useless.
ChatGPT says that the above safety features have been proven to reduce deaths and permanent disabilities.
Digital features
- The infotainment screen has extremely low height. When using Google Maps, I want to see what’s down the road, which requires more height. Width doesn’t help — it shows me what’s far away from my path, which is irrelevant. The Basalt’s screen is so low height that I might as well use my phone screen. That way, I don’t have the downsides of CarPlay, like being unable to pinch to zoom out and see the route. The Basalt’s screen fails at its primary job.
+ The screen is HD.
- There’s no USB-C port.
Front passenger seat
- Can’t stretch legs comfortably
- Headroom is not spacious
- Seat back adjustment is jerky (like the driver’s seat)
Rear seat
- Can’t stretch legs comfortably
- Headroom is not great (almost all cars suffer from this problem)
- The rear window is not panoramic — your eyes are close to the top
+ Center armrest 2 cupholders and phone holder
+ AC with dual vents with separate left / right adjustment and common up/down adjustment.
- No USB-C
+ In the rear seat, thigh support is adjustable. This is unique.
It’s monocoque / unibody.
I’ve found that a panoramic sunroof helps cool the car fast even when it’s been parked for hours in the summer sun.