[Dr.Naren]

Interior rattles are well known in Maruti Suzuki cars and most of them have learnt to live with it and funnily known as "free" accessory

Ok, this thread is not about the rattles..I am really disappointed with the poor quality interior parts in their premium Nexa cars like Baleno and S-Cross. I own both of them and have faced couple of issues.

I have also verified that these issues were quite common and posting few pics received from other owners too.

Baleno:

1. Peeling of door pads fabric





2. Cracks on gear knob





3. Chipping of chrome surround around push start button



4. Unexpected falling of cabin light lens



5. Broken AC vent sliding knob



S-Cross:

1. Broken AC vent sliding knob



2. Peeling of steering wheel leather









3. Cracks on gear knob







I had posted a thread 5 years back saying Maruti is being strict about quality of parts and asking suppliers to meet the standards. It doesn't look like they were serious about it

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...r-quality.html (Maruti Suzuki cracks down on suppliers over quality)

Maruti Suzuki is the number 1 car manufacturer in India. They do make reliable engines and transmissions. But, they need to focus on better quality of interior parts. There's an almost 1 lakh Kms run Grand I10 in our garage which has zero rattles, and I didn't face any of the above issues too. I have also observed that Maruti Suzuki quality has deteriorated in newer cars. My 10 years old SX4 has better interior parts except for minor rattles.

The above mentioned issues really spoil the so called premium "Nexa Experience"

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[moralfibre]

Couldn't agree more. The leather wrapped steering wheel of a 17L rupee Scross flakes out in 2-3 years. No wonder Maruti has had a terrible innings on the right side of 15L rupees forever. They simply don't understand what the market wants and how they want it. They seem to be happy building tin cans that they are famous for and carry that same mentality in higher priced cars.

[dark.knight]

To me personally, interior quality, quietness, refinement are top priorities when it comes to cars. The interior has the maximum number of touch-points and pressure areas so its imperative for a car manufacturer to put good quality (i.e rigid, heat resistant and fade resistant) plastics at the highest touch zones i.e steering, gear knob and door panels.

Also, its ok to not have leather wrap at all rather than put poor quality one over the steering, all leather eventually become shiny, smooth and a slippery eel which is dangerous on a steering wheel.

Let's all agree that "true" luxury experience starts at D segment onwards, nothing below can be considered one, maybe close but not so much. NEXA was just a positioning to introduce newer models which did work wonders and still does, but none of their cars qualify as true luxury, they tried their hands in the premium league with SX4, Kizashi and Vitara and bombed in it, they simply do not want to spend on newer R&D, quality refinement and overall experience since they are maxed out with respect to sales anyway.

[arvind71181]

Absolutely agreed. I had to replace the steering cover of my car at around the 3 year mark as the premium leather just came off.

The gear knob is next in line. For a 4 year car, the way it has deteriorated is unacceptable. On top of that I hear that they charge around 5k for the part

The overall driving experience has been good, but these minor details do matter in an ownership experience. The older Marutis were better I suppose as my 85k run swift and my dad's current 1 lakh run sx4 does not have these problems. So much for the premium NEXA experience. Buck up Maruti!!!

[sridhar-v]

I never thought I would say this - I am glad Maruti is reusing common parts across all models.
The driver side master controller switch on my Grand Vitara failed with a passenger side window glass stuck open. A little detective work by MASS deduced that the switch body of a swift was interchangeable. So 15 mins of diagnosis and jugaad helped put the vehicle back on road for 1/5th the cost of an imported switch. And no downtime against a month of so for import.

[Dr.Naren]

Originally Posted by arvind71181

The gear knob is next in line. For a 4 year car, the way it has deteriorated is unacceptable. On top of that I hear that they charge around 5k for the part

True!! The gear knob of S-Cross 1.6 is imported and cost more than 5k. We can get the gear knob of Ciaz 1.5 DDIS for 500 bucks. It will fit, just need to replace the shift pattern from old knob

[Raghu M]

The reason for steering far away from MSIL is this. While 90% is because of safety, the rest is because Maruti simply doesn't understand what is premium. It is premium only in the showroom, once you start using the cars, only the engine is reliable. Everything else, right from steering to general rattles to poor quality of plastics, the complaints list is endless.

[freakmuzik]

Wow! Never knew the gear-knob cracking issue is so common with Maruti-Suzuki. My 10 year old Wagon-R too had the same issue. But other than that, I can see that their parts 10 years ago were better than the ones today. I felt the same comparing the F10D Wagon-R to the K10 Wagon-R as well. Though the design looked better, the hard plastics in F10D of my friends car seemed to stay put better. That is some intense quality deterioration over the years.

[AMG Power]

Don’t blame Maruti.

Blame the Indian psyche of making a fast buck at all touch points. (What a wonderful usage of that term )

It is not that Maruti would have insisted on reduction in quality but the typical one-sided thinking idiots (a lot of these around in Indian companies) in their vendor approval team would have insisted that the vendor substantially reduce prices while maintaining the same level of quality. (Do they think the vendors are running charitable institutions to do good for Maruti?)

Typical Indian oversmartness of thinking a win-lose can work.

Oversmartness as always hinders farsightedness and Maruti staff thought they could get the vendor to do their bidding. They didn’t realize that vendors have lots of tricks up their sleeves. As a result, a win-lose became a lose-win.

At another level, once the parts were indigenised, the OEM vendors would have also got the Maruti vendor approval team to be hand in glove with their wayward ways.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[gururajrv]

Ok this is really disappointing. However, my 4 year old Brezza is tight in terms of door pads and overall quality as it seems like. I agree it hasn’t run as much as the other guys have posted here as mine is just about 40.5k kms on odo. Quality of parts used in Brezza seems acceptable but there’s an irritating rattle from the dashboard that is so annoying. MSIL won’t hold a candle in terms of quality as against Hyundai for sure. Both companies are volume focused but Hyundai has better quality parts used which seems tight all around.

[shortbread]

I have to politely disagree, It is definitely Maruti's fault and the blame lies with Hamamatsu HQ in Japan which is pushing the Indian entity into maximising profits in order to ensure the survival of the parent entity.

Squeeze the goose that is laying Suzuki Japan's golden eggs.

Because the very same Indian psyche exports high quality auto components the world over.

OR, the same Indian psyche running the likes of M&M or Tata have made rapid strides in products, R&D, quality from their initial days of truck like build in their passenger vehicles. From the days of Armada, Estate to two decades later and the interiors of Safari etc, the progress is astounding. Maruti on the other hand seem to be headed in the opposite direction.

This culture of cutting costs and focussing only on profitability is driven by Suzuki Japan. This will reap benefits in the near term, and the books will balance out very well. BUT the complete lack of foresight will hurt Maruti in the long term.

Maruti is no more a desirable brand in India.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Don’t blame Maruti.

Blame the Indian psyche of making a fast buck at all touch points. (What a wonderful usage of that term )

It is not that Maruti would have insisted on reduction in quality but the typical one-sided thinking idiots (a lot of these around in Indian companies) in their vendor approval team would have insisted that the vendor substantially reduce prices while maintaining the same level of quality. (Do they think the vendors are running charitable institutions to do good for Maruti?)

Typical Indian oversmartness of thinking a win-lose can work.

Oversmartness as always hinders farsightedness and Maruti staff thought they could get the vendor to do their bidding. They didn’t realize that vendors have lots of tricks up their sleeves. As a result, a win-lose became a lose-win.

At another level, once the parts were indigenised, the OEM vendors would have also got the Maruti vendor approval team to be hand in glove with their wayward ways.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[pavi]

I don't think we should expect a different quality for NEXA cars, as NEXA stands for 'experience', in simple words, ipads, 'suited' sales personal, and black background with white lettering. Need proof, how can someone justify Ciaz promoted to NEXA with a simple Nexa sticker and a new colour. Nexa stands for 'virtual premium'. These issues are 'normal' for most Maruti customers, and I am pretty sure that 90% of their (normal) customers think these are wear and tear issues. As long as the mechanicals are fine, customers won't be complaining much about these issues.

[silverado]

I dont think this is happening with majority of cars. I have a 5 year old Baleno which has done 32k kms, and none of the parts mentioned here ( or for that matter none of the parts ) have chipped/ faded/ or come apart.

My car has been tight and rattle free till now.
Car has always been inside covered parking and i am the only person who drives it.

[Leem]

Being from one of Tier1 suppliers to OEMs, i happen to know a bit about purchase departments of various manufacturers.

Being a vendor for MSIL models is a dream for most suppliers. over 20k sales/month for top selling models to consistent 4-5k orders is something which can supplement a complete manufacturing unit at tier 1 levels.

Ergo