Hello BHPians!
This is a quick longterm ownership review of our Maruti Suzuki Dzire 2017 VDI Diesel. This one certainly is quite special to me. Why you may ask? This is the car that taught me how to drive. Starting off with some pictures of/with it.
The Buying decision- We wanted a replacement for our Maruti Swift 2014, This one had to be used as the primary car for my uncle. He now wanted to make a shift from the driving seat, to the backseat. Legroom started to make its importance felt. The Swift was terrible at it to be honest.
Cars considered- If I try to recall, no other car even got a privilege to be talked about, let aside a proper consideration. The Dzire was just launched, and it felt like a no-brainer to my uncle as If Maruti had launched this car just for him.
The D-day- It wasn't until the delivery that I got to know that there's a new vehicle coming. I noticed a new car standing in our parking in the afternoon and I was later told that It had meant to be some sort of a surprise to me, Well that didn't happen. Rather I was shocked.
I never liked the Dzire, at a time when you could see everyone on social media screaming about the terrible build-quality, safety, performance of Maruti cars and what not, owning one somewhat irked me. Still, I had to make peace with it anyway.
At the time of posting this ownership review, the car is just a few KMs shy of crossing the 90,000km mark.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that it managed to improve Maruti's soiled perception in my mind and to the extent, that I have developed an infatuation for this car now.
Time for the age-old ritual: (What I like and what I don't)
I believe, you discover new likes and dislikes in a car after actually owning it. The likes that got you to buy the car in the first place just fade away and new likes that you never thought would ever matter to you, become the reason for you to hold the car for longer.
Here are my likes: The flat bottom steering wheel:
I don't know how many times this steering wheel has made getting out of tight traffic jams smooth as butter. The bottom serves as a good area to use your palm to manoeuvre. Not sure it has been given in the car to serve this purpose but proves to be useful every single time.
Performance isn't that bad: The diesel motor packs in adequate performance, turbo doesn't wake up until 1500-1700 RPM, but once it does, leaves little room for complaints.
The Wooden trim:
I just love the way this long wooden piece that runs through the dashboard looks.
Coming to my dislikes: Ground Clearance: Considering the fact that this is a car that has been almost fully developed in India, ground clearance is tad lower than it should have been. Scraped it multiple times upon speed breakers that don't even look that cruel.
Highway performance: Doing triple digit speeds feel terrifying. Feels as if things are just a pothole away from falling apart.
Looks: Doesn't look special, look at it for a couple of minutes and you'll get bored. Part of the reason could be its cab-abilty
Overall, a great city workhorse to run errands with. It Isn't a looker but hey! it's not even meant to be. Drive under the speed limit and it won't disappoint.