Re: Next-gen Maruti WagonR spied. Edit: Launched @ Rs. 4.19 lakhs I Test Drove the new 1.2L AMT WagonR yesterday for a colleague.
* Maruti has done something to the AMT so much so that it felt like a different AMT gearbox to me. I could actually live with this AMT, given that I'm leery of the technology as a whole. Upshifts were pretty much on time and relatively smooth.
* It seems wider and longer than its predecessors. Heads of passers-by did turn. People do notice.
* The engine is good. I like it. Power delivery is sufficient and when I floored the accelerator, I liked the throaty growl it emitted. There was very good refinement with none of the 3-cylinder vibrations that one associates with the WagonR nowadays. I couldn't take it on a high-speed run, but it felt free-revving and I think it will do triple digits with ease in a straight line.
* The suspension felt soft, even a jolly bit bouncy when I took a U turn. There was just a bit of bodyroll.
* Shoulder-room has vastly improved over the older WagonR models, especially at the front. I'm as wide as a blackboard at my shoulders and my colleague isn't exactly thin either. There will be no rubbing elbows or any "me too" moments among carpooling/ride-sharing colleagues on account of the new WagonR! You can manspread all you want and your knees won't rub against hers either. Toxic masculinity becomes irrelevant in this car and it makes you think - why don't people take a hint from the new WagonR and just maintain their distance from members of the other gender? Whoa, hey - I've gone off the rails here...let's not burn our Gillette razors yet. Back to the review.
* There was a fair bit of road-noise felt inside the cabin. We drove over a concrete road and we could feel and hear most of the customary noises you get when driving over concrete. One could do with some aftermarket sound deadening in this car.
* Rear headrests in the Zxi we tested were fused with the seat. They're no good quite frankly, unless one were to slide down in the rear seats so that the headrests can actually support your head/neck. Or maybe it was just us, at 6'4" and 6'2" respectively.
* The boot-space of 340 odd litres seemed surprising - since the 350 litre mark is like a gold standard associated with the Jazz in my mind; it became apparent that the Jazz achieves all that boot-space by accentuating on all that length available inside of it, while the new WagonR achieves nearly the same by utilizing its tall-boy design. But the high lip in the boot does make you lift your luggage up an extra foot or so.
* Speaking of its being a tallboy - it is seriously tall. Headroom was pretty good inside.
* But despite being a tallboy design, and much unlike its predecessors, the driver's seat positioning is disappointing. Both of us had to sit with our knees pointing up at the sky. Thankfully, the steering wheel's height is adjustable - but again, the seat isn't height-adjustable, not even in the Zxi. Overall, tall drivers would get back problems in it, unless one were to place a firm cushion on the driver's seat in order to sit higher, to have one's thighs parallel to the ground (and thereby eliminate undue stress on one's lumbar vertebral discs) and so as to get any under-thigh support.
* The Maruti salesguy told me that fully loaded, its Ground Clearance (GC) won't dip any lower than 165 mm. I don't remember now what its unladen GC figure is though...
* Even the Zxi doesn't come with Alloy wheels. Unsurprisingly then, the spare wheel placed beneath the boot comes with a steel wheel. But the spare tyre isn't thinner, nor is the wheel of a lesser diameter than the usual wheels.
On the whole - I feel that this car is a keeper. If I were to buy one now, you can be sure that I'll keep it until I run it into the ground. It is a very capable urban commuter and an can be used for occasional highway sprints. It remains to be seen whether my colleague will buy it though, since he's seriously disappointed with the seating height behind the wheel.
Last edited by locusjag : 19th February 2019 at 11:26.
Reason: dotted my i's and crossed a few missed t's
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