[Aditya]

The Maruti Suzuki Wagon R has crossed the cumulative 15 lakh sales mark. Launched in the year 2000, the Wagon R has achieved this milestone in just 14 year. The tallboy hatchback has been a regular in the top 5 best-selling cars in India over the years.

In India, the Wagon R was originally launched with a 1.1-litre, 4-cylinder petrol engine producing 64 bhp and 84 Nm of torque. Maruti also introduced a DUO version of the car that ran on LPG. On the cosmetic front the company gave the car facelifts on a periodic basis.

In 2010, the all-new Wagon R was launched. It featured a 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder K10 petrol engine that was good for 67 bhp and 90 Nm of torque. A CNG-powered version of the car was also introduced. This version, according to Maruti, accounts for 50% of the sales of the car in cities like Mumbai and Delhi. The company also went on to introduce a Stingray version of the car, which features a number of cosmetic changes and sits at the top of the Wagon R range.

The Wagon R continues its strong run with 156,000 units sold in 2013-14. In the current year, Maruti claims that it has already sold more than 93,000 units of the car.

[i74js]

Well - congratulations to MSIL and Wagon-R owners.

Though its a dream milestone for almost every other manufacturer operating out of India to reach such sale figures, yet the readers and owners will agree that with every facelift, MSIL played badly on quality and compromised the car on almost all fronts including the structural strength.

Numbers do matter yet, I am amazed that though the Indian automobile sector has come a long way, people at large are simply going by the brand and not by what the brand is offering against the money paid for a particular product.

I do not think that maintaining a Maruti / Suzuki product is any cheaper then peers (in the same segment)

The product quality is inferior and thus cannot be considered as VFM, even premium products from MSIL stable start rattling and falling apart earlier then peers

I am sure MSIL is still is in hearts of first time buyers and am almost sure it is not in the head, yet many a times heart rules over head and we see decisions being made accordingly.

Kudos to Maruti !

[DCEite]

Having owned both the 1.1 and 1.0 versions, i can certainly vouch for the immense practicality and ease of city driving of this highly versatile and underrated car.

Its not just the fact that its a Maruti, or is highly fuel efficient, as the reasons for it being a superhit. Other factors such as bullet proof reliability, low maintanance, ease of driving (read high seating position and ease of ingress/egress), practical cubbyholes and simple mechanicals make it a perfect city roundabout.

I still miss my Waggie.

[StepUP!]

What is WagonR Minor launched in 2012-13?

[Santoshbhat]

What a success story the WagonR has been for MSIL. We had the original 4 Cylinder 1.1L four seater version from 2000 to 2012. Its hefty build quality was very unmaruti like. Some features like EPS, tachometer and 16V MPFI engines were the highlights for a small car. At the time of launch, its boxy and awkward dimensions came in for a lot of criticism, but it was the only small car that could seat four tall adults in decent comfort. I even used the car to haul industrial good upto 800 kgs in the flat loading bay. My only dislikes were the buzzy engine and notchy gearshift.

When I put it on sale in 2012 after 12 years of use, I sold it within 24 hrs of posting the AD on T BHP classifieds.

[a4anurag]

After the Alto, WagonR and Swift demand good value in the second hand market even today after ages of launch. That itself speaks of the trust the public have in the WagonR and with Maruti. Be it on reliability, driveability, FE there is no disappointment.

Month-on-Month this car is in the top 5 with hardly any problems reported. IMO, stingray was a failure but the regular one sells happily.

Space be it width wise or height wise is great for those dimensions and overall a very comfortable car with spot-on ergonomics. Commend Maruti for such a brilliant packaging with compact dimensions.

We had the WagonR from 2000 till 2010 and this is the only car that stayed this long which was loved both by my dad and me. Long live WagonR!

Congratulations to Maruti Suzuki and the WagonR.

Anurag.

[fine69]

Wasn't this the first Japanese kind of design on Indian roads. Japanese were making their cars taller and squarer owing to the space constraint there and Wagon-R seemed to be the first of its kind, boxy & tall, unlike the Santro which was tall but a little curvy around the edges.

[saket77]

Congratulations to Maruti Suzuki on achieving this feat. How a 14 year old automobile still manages big numbers regularly in the highly dynamic Indian market scenario is indeed appreciable. Speaks tons about the reliability, service and resale of the vehicle, not to miss the practicality aspect. Kudos to MS!

Originally Posted by fine69

Wasn't this the first Japanese kind of design on Indian roads. Japanese were making their cars taller and squarer owing to the space constraint there and Wagon-R seemed to be the first of its kind, boxy & tall, unlike the Santro which was tall but a little curvy around the edges.

Of all the Maruti Suzuki models, I find the original M800 - SS80 to be the most 'authentically' Japanese by face. After that, yes, definitely the Wagon-R.

[sinharishi]

Owning one since March 2009.

Car has been reliable, low on maintenance, fuel efficient. Proved to be a VFM.

Congratulations to MSIL.

At 1,10,000 Kms:

[volkman10]

Indeed it is a great feat for Wagon R and Maruti for achieving this and the customers for understanding the value of this car in its segment.

A tall boy design with make/break looks and ruling the charts in the top 5 is no small achievement.

If speculations are true the AMT version of the Wagon R will only make this car bring more numbers for Maruti in coming years.

[GTO]

A close aunt was recently looking at a replacement for her 8 year old WagonR. She's quite a rough driver and has run the WagonR into the ground. It's never let her down.

She spent the last couple of days test-driving all hatchbacks <6 lakhs. It finally came down to the WagonR Stingray (she loves the practicality & front-end design) and the Celerio AMT (only for the AMT).

It's as if Maruti heard her wishes - link to news article. She's going to hold onto her WagonR until the Stingray AMT is launched.

Quite telling that she really didn't like any other hatchback (her garage includes a Toyota Innova, Skoda Rapid, Swift Diesel, i20 petrol) for her self-driving needs.

Originally Posted by fine69

Wasn't this the first Japanese kind of design on Indian roads.

Among the other changes that the WagonR got for India was a larger engine (Japanese version had a 660 cc motor).

I'd still consider the Santro to be as much of a Kei-Car as the WagonR is.

[amikacin]

We have a Wagon R in our garage since 2003. The previous gen Wagon R stayed with us till last year. For a few months, our garage was adorned by two Wagon Rs. When we were looking for a replacement of our old gen WagonR in 2013, my dad could not convince himself for another car. My mom loves the high seating position offered by this car and back seat comfort.

My family members are so spoiled by this car that they can not bring themselves to sit in any of the low slung hatchbacks or sedans in the market today. The big windows in the car create a roomy feeling and prevents claustrophobic feeling. The previous gen version had humongous boot space and served our long distance tours pretty well. Many a times, a small household used to travel in the car with us. (Of course, that is the characteristic of a typical Indian traveler )

Only issue that we faced sometimes was the bottom scraping at sometimes at those speedbumps. The comfort, ease of driving in city, niggle free ownership and acres of space for luggage (in older version) are the USP of this car.

My Wagon R has found a new home, but even now a chance encounter on the streets brings a rush of fond memories and a smile to my face instantly.

[DicKy]

At first I used to make fun of the WagonR, especially at my friend who had one. Used to say it was tall, had high GC and was not planted compared to the Indicab we had then... though I used to envy the boxy space it had.

Circa. 2009, we had sold off the Indicab to our driver itself and were carless for an year. Dad came back to India for vacation and for some days used cabs and relatives' cars, but it was highly inconvenient. Then he decided to buy an Alto to use for a year till we bought a nice car. My pleas of buying a used City or Baleno fell to deaf ears... hehe...(had just got my license then.)

Off we trooped to Popular Maruti where me and brother left parents to deal with the salesman and were checking out the SX4 and artistically evaluating the Ritz rear end. It so happened that a WagonR was lying near the Alto and when dad looked for a difference of some 50-60k, we got a car with higher seating and a bigger boot. He didn't particularly like the styling, but then this was a compromise purchase. Booked it and told us, and I was like. Didn't even do a test drive !!!

During the initial days dad used to rue about the gearshift and the awkwardly styled ORVMs, but he soon warmed to the idea of a small car with high seating position, low floor and easy to drive.

Years passed and 5 years later, karumbi(black girl) is still with us, from my school board exams, college days, and finally now my daily commute for my MBA days.

Given its price, for me the car is VFM. Sure it's performance to fuel efficiency ratio is skewed but i do get a small torquey petrol.

Also the ride/handling combo deserves appreciation given the body style limitations of the car. Also can't find a single modern Maruti under 10lakhs that gives the same interior quality. (maybe the '90s carryover) and though my Waggie had run only 35k kms, the abuse it went through multiple drivers and my kid brother learning on it, it still continues to serve like new.

Happy with it, except like i said above, the performance:FE ratio.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

What a success story the WagonR has been for MSIL. We had the original 4 Cylinder 1.1L four seater version from 2000 to 2012. Its hefty build quality was very unmaruti like. Some features like EPS, tachometer and 16V MPFI engines were the highlights for a small car. At the time of launch, its boxy and awkward dimensions came in for a lot of criticism, but it was the only small car that could seat four tall adults in decent comfort. I even used the car to haul industrial good upto 800 kgs in the flat loading bay. My only dislikes were the buzzy engine and notchy gearshift.

When I put it on sale in 2012 after 12 years of use, I sold it within 24 hrs of posting the AD on T BHP classifieds.

I thought I was the first on this forum to have one, but you beat me to it by a year! I guess we were among the first 5000 persons in the country to own one!

I bought mine in July 2001 and it is still doing great. It has been very reliable and city-friendly, and my wife is very comfortable with it. It's done around 73000 clicks on the odo so far.

I still prefer the older version because it has more luggage space, has reclining rear seats and far better low end torque. The new one has a better gearshift and rear leg room though, and it has better grunt at high revvs.

Here's a picture of my steed.

[gomzi]

I echo most of the views here. I initially didn't like the car and used to wonder out aloud as to who'll actually pay good money to drive a shoe-box on wheels.
Well in the end it happened that Dad drove a friends WagonR for a couple of hours and loved it, booked it on his way home from the friends house and it was at our doorstep in a couple of weeks. I went at the time as I had eyes on the recently launched Swift.

Well, 8yrs down the road, and ~91k on the ODO, the tables are turned. Although this car is hardly used these days, i'm loathe to sell it.
Its the family beater car, to take to places where parking is uncertain, on bad roads, to carry loads for airport runs, etc etc.

To borrow a slang phrase, it takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin'.