[ramzsys]

Originally Posted by RSR

So who are the target buyers? Those who're really crazy about fuel efficiency?

5 lakhs in cash will be more than sufficient to buy you a couple of years old swift D, an 1 year old Ritz D from their very own reliable Maruti stable. This is what i am going to tell people if my opinion is sought.

Anyway, let's gear up to welcome this Arnab Goswami of cars!

[saket77]

Originally Posted by RSR

So who are the target buyers? Those who're really crazy about fuel efficiency?

Absolutely! No two ways about it that people who would value the FE more than the NVH & driveability of the car will be the only buyers. This car can easily churn out an FE of at least 20 KMPL in the city. Plus at the running cost of diesel. However, all this at the cost of Celerio brand, in my opinion. Only if Maruti had added that one extra cylinder to this engine, it would not had been so unconventional and NVH would have been also slightly better. Though, no where close to a naturally balanced 4 pot motor.

As you said, probably Stingray would have been the perfect candidate for this adventure. It could have been used as a distinguishing factor from the regular WagonR. Plus, Maruti could have priced the car even lower since WagonR platform is now much older than the newer Celerio. The older platform has already been juiced fully in financial terms and Maruti would only be reaping good profits by using it.

Regards.

[wanderhermit]

I am trying to decode Maruti's logic.

1. Maruti does not wants to experiment with best sellers. So Alto and Wagon R are out.

2. Celerio, is basically latest generation of Alto. So all new experiments are being done on latest platform. As in the case of AMT, which was first introduced only in Celerio.

3. Also, Celerio sells less. Because it expensive. So in case there is a bug, it can be fixed with a smaller recall. It will be less expensive to the company.

3. Worst come worst, if the product fails to take off, sales of only Celerio brand will be affected.

4. Alto successors (new gen versions: A Star and Celerio) have not set the sales on fire. These are weak brands can be killed anytime. To the best of my knowledge, A Star is already a history.

5. If the engine is accepted by the public, it can be introduced in as many brands as per need and production capacity.

6. Here's a catch. The initial Celerio owners are the guinea pigs. But these customers are anyways looking for something new. So the large Maruti base with buys the best sellers (like Swift, Dzire. Alto, Wagon R, Omni) would be unaffected. No surprises there. For customer who have faith in the winners.

7. So basically, I think, its a typical Japanese philosophy. Conservative at its core but also trying new products in a small quantities.

8. The most important point is, that Maruti has the confidence in its engineering, to introduce something new in the segment. Tata has already shelved its two cylinder deisel option for Nano. They want to wait for Maruti in this small engine segment.

9. Even after leading the auto segment for decades, Maruti is innovating and trying to open small niche segments which are non existent.

10. If Maruti succeeds, it is win win for everybody. For Maruti, customers, and the also the competition.

11. The key here is the performance of the new deisel engine plus its acoustics. Only time can tell if the engineers have hit the nail in the centre.

12. We as customers have nothing to lose. We just get more choice. That's our right.

13. Personally, I would wait for couple of months before taking a leap.

[aaggoswami]

While visiting one of the dealers to try out Swift ( took mom along this week ), I got an opportunity to spend 5-8 minutes with Celerio diesel.
The car was in basement, and not in open environment.

Below are my observations, and I own Grand i10 diesel magna variant :

1) The motor is noisy, even inside the cabin. Grand i10 is better, Swift is much better.
2) Revving the engine does not help control harshness. The engine just gets more and more noisy.
3) Vibrations are felt in the cabin at certain rpm, and also through the pedals.
4) The motor sounded agricultural. I was wondering how much more noisy an engine can be inside the cabin than Innova. Celerio diesel could break that record. Literally, the sound is too much to tolerate.

It would make more sense to get a used Swift diesel or even Grand i10 diesel over Celerio diesel. Other than the usual Maruti benefits and very nice visibility from driver's seat coupled with fantastic FE, there is nothing going for this car given the engine noise. They should have brought this engine first in Alto 800 as the car is already having an image of FE centric car.

Not to equivocate, the noisy motor is not suited to be installed in passenger cars.

There was sound insulation under the hood.

[Carophilic]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

While visiting one of the dealers to try out Swift ( took mom along this week ), I got an opportunity to spend 5-8 minutes with Celerio diesel.
The car was in basement, and not in open environment.

Below are my observations, and I own Grand i10 diesel magna variant :

1) The motor is noisy, even inside the cabin. Grand i10 is better, Swift is much better.
2) Revving the engine does not help control harshness. The engine just gets more and more noisy.
3) Vibrations are felt in the cabin at certain rpm, and also through the pedals.
4) The motor sounded agricultural. I was wondering how much more noisy an engine can be inside the cabin than Innova. Celerio diesel could break that record. Literally, the sound is too much to tolerate.

It would make more sense to get a used Swift diesel or even Grand i10 diesel over Celerio diesel. Other than the usual Maruti benefits and very nice visibility from driver's seat coupled with fantastic FE, there is nothing going for this car given the engine noise. They should have brought this engine first in Alto 800 as the car is already having an image of FE centric car.

Not to equivocate, the noisy motor is not suited to be installed in passenger cars.

There was sound insulation under the hood.

I actually drove the car for five minutes and to me, it was less noisier than VW Polo but had more vibrations. The car was low on power post 100 kmph. Otherwise is an acceptable product.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Carophilic

I actually drove the car for five minutes and to me, it was less noisier than VW Polo but had more vibrations. The car was low on power post 100 kmph. Otherwise is an acceptable product.

Not sure about Polo, but it was certainly worse than my Grand i10 diesel. The noise penetrated inside the cabin irrespective of engine rpm.
I dont think there would more than 3-4% noise reduction on open environment, as a swift diesel, parked next to celerio diesel in basement, was started and the same process was repeated. Hence my post of Swift diesel being more refined.

Vibrations were evident, the salesperson with me also made similar comment. He had driven the car, for slow speed city traffic, it seems OK, but beyond that it lacks grunt as per him. I could not drive Celerio diesel as some documentation issues were cited. My expectations could be higher, but such noisy engine, in a modern car, IMO is not acceptable. My mobile battery was low, else would have measured the sound via app.

[itsashishsharma]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

My expectations could be higher, but such noisy engine, in a modern car, IMO is not acceptable.

I totally understand your viewpoint. Even I won't advise it to anybody. If budget is an issue, get the petrol variant. If diesel is really required, get the Beat instead, or the Figo, Ritz, Grand i10... but not a 2cyl diesel.
But, I have a feeling that this one will sell. It is a high mileage diesel car from Maruti. How can it not sell, after all, the public loves Maruti, diesel, mileage and space. That is all. They don't even know that Swift's DDis is in fact a Fiat engine, even after 7-8 years. They would just see that this one is also a DDis, so as good as the Swift's diesel is, this one would be, just that it is a smaller one, and hence in a cheaper car. That sounds fine to them.

[Hashim]

To me the diesel celerio sound reminds me of Honda Eterno scooter, just more louder. We might not complain this much for this odd sound after listening engine note on road.

I am not an automotive engineer but can't maruti change celerio engine exhaust note to a pleasing one by working more on the exhaust design? or is it the best they can do?

[condor]

romeomidhun : OMG! That ace/maximo sound!

The Ace sounds better ! But this one is more like a slightly refined diesel engine that runs our goods diesel auto's.

[charanreddy]

The Only reason for me to buy this car is if it's cost is comparable to the alto 800. Chevy Beat has a 3 Cyl 1 litre engine and that itself IMO is under-powered. This will serve as a good car for the villages where traffic is thin and people are looking to extract the last KM out the fuel in mileage. I believe this is a trick missed by Maruti, they should have launched a car at par with alto with bare bones features and this extremely frugal engine. As a customer, I will definitely buy the likely cheaper alto 800 and than buy this under powered diesel engine.

[humyum]

Well, someone going to work everyday for say a 40 kilometer to and fro ride, he gets the body of a Celerio which is quite upmarket for it's price if you ask me, the mileage which will hover around 21 to 23 in the city considering its diesel, a light clutch, has okay interiors, a car which handles well backed by Maruti's after sales service and an on road price of around 5.5 lakhs, what's there not to like ?

If this same car is later launched in an AMT avatar, this will cause Maruti's booking servers to shut down because of them being overloaded.

I think Maruti have a true winner in their hands.

[sinhsha]

I felt though loud but it reasonably refined and free revving

[turboturtle]

Originally Posted by humyum

Well, someone going to work everyday for say a 40 kilometer to and fro ride, he gets the body of a Celerio which is quite upmarket for it's price if you ask me, the mileage which will hover around 21 to 23 in the city considering its diesel, a light clutch, has okay interiors, a car which handles well backed by Maruti's after sales service and an on road price of around 5.5 lakhs, what's there not to like ?

If this same car is later launched in an AMT avatar, this will cause Maruti's booking servers to shut down because of them being overloaded.

I think Maruti have a true winner in their hands.

+1. Add me to the target audience. Mileage/FE is something that I really care about (given that I drive almost 70 KMS everyday), it definitely makes sense to go for a diesel. Interiors et. al. are something that I am usually blind to, as long as the basics are present. AMT, well, that would be the icing on the cake.

However, and this is a big however, I only wish there was enough safety kit (atleast an ABS + 2 airbags) added since most of the times, I drive alone or with a colleague. Honestly, I wouldn't mind getting this for my daily drives to office with the safety kit (even if that costs about 80000 INR more); but that, I guess, would only be a very small minority. In the safety avatar, I could use it as a daily commuter; for family and for long drives on the motorways, this certainly won't do. Need a bigger one for the family / motorway drives.

Well, if wishes were horses.. in case of Maruti, I daresay they will remain horses too

[romeomidhun]

Source: http://indianautosblog.com/2015/06/m...details-180340

"The twin-cylinder 793 cc diesel engine does without a common-rail diesel injection, instead engineers along with Bosch have come up with an engine management system with a fuel injection block, a high-pressure fuel pump and a fuel control unit. Other features of this engine include a compact, high-revving turbocharger and four valves per cylinder."

Surprised that it is not a common-rail DI motor.

[RSR]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

"The twin-cylinder 793 cc diesel engine does without a common-rail diesel injection, instead engineers along with Bosch have come up with an engine management system with a fuel injection block, a high-pressure fuel pump and a fuel control unit.

If it's not a common-rail diesel engine, then I thought it would have a unit injector system - similar to the rather (in)famous Pumpe Düse diesels that were used in VAG cars earlier.

However, it's not a unit injector system either!

So I guess it technologically lies in-between the two. There is no "common-rail" as such, and each cylinder does not have its own high pressure injector, either.

As there are only two cylinders, I guess the "fuel injection block" contains a high pressure fuel pump that supplies both of them directly.

So it's technically neither a common-rail unit, nor a unit injector system. I guess Bosch & Maruti Suzuki could proclaim this to be a completely new technology and call it a turbo-charged common-block direct injection diesel engine, or a CBDi engine!