[Otto]

Originally Posted by Hickstead

1) No butch looks and no advantage compared to Brezza
in the cabin space.


2) Bad head room.



3) Horrible part sharing from lower models.


4) Bad execution of Sunroof with weak blind.


5) Poor placement of battery hindering the boot space in Hybrid.



etc.

1) No butch looks and no advantage compared to Brezza
in the cabin space.


The GV is a larger car.
Anyone with a family and a kid traveling will tell you how much bigger it is.


2) Bad head room.

The average Indian height is 5'8". I'm 5'11" and I have no problem.
Can't be only me, can it?

3) Horrible part sharing from lower models.

This makes the parts cheaper because of the mass production.
Why anyone should complain for saving money is beyond me.

Horrible wpuld be when you have to spend a lakh for a steering wheel.

4) Bad execution of Sunroof with weak blind.

Won't comment.

I think sunroofs are overkill and should be banned.

5) Poor placement of battery hindering the boot space in Hybrid.

Please let us know which full hybrid mid size SUV has better battery placement?

[car-o-phile]

Hi Everyone

I have been watching this thread since a month and surprisingly, after I bought my Grand Vitara Alpha Plus.

Just a quick background of why I bought it.
I owned a 2014 Honda City iVTec V and a 2017 Celerio AMT ZXi Optional. I was working from home since 5 years. 6 months ago started going to office and daily commute in the NCR traffic was a pain. If it were not for daily commute, I planned to buy a new car in 2024 and that too electric.

When Tiago EV was launched, I thought of buying it and getting rid of the Celerio. But soon dropped the idea as it being too small for a daily comfortable driver.
Then I looked at Nexon EV and we almost sealed the deal. We thought of looking at the hybrid cars once as we still had some doubts on the electric cars and had to keep the City as a second car (we do not need 2 cars as of now). We did not want to go from the 4th Gen city to the 5th Gen City. We looked at Hyryder and everyone in the family liked it. I had no idea about the loooong waiting periods as we were not actively looking for a car until recently. We decided to go with the Hyryder G variant and sell both the cars.
I did not want to wait for few month now that I finalised the car. I had to get it asap. Tried to find some "jugaad" but not strong enough that could have got me the car in less than 2 weeks.
Finally on Oct 12 got the jugaad from but for the Grand Vitara and that too Alpha Plus and not the Hyryder G equivalent Zeta Plus.

So in short the journey started with no plans to buy a new car anytime soon to buying a 23 lakhs Maruti by someone who decided not to buy a Maruti. And that too without any test drive.

Experience so far
I really like the car and I am happy with my decision. Got the NEXA blue color and immediately got PPF done to save the paint.

Here is what I like about the car and what could have been better. I am not a car reviewer so the experience will always be in comparison to my previously owned car.

What I like
1. Car really feels tough (coming from a city owner).
2. On the EV mode it is super silent
3. The ride is great. It takes up bumps easily.
4. I am loving the SUV form factor. It has been the biggest change after driving a sedan for the last 8 years.
5. It is extremely efficient. I was able to get 23kmpl (full tank to full tank method) in the last 800km of City driving mostly in bumper to bumper traffic.
6. I feel a sense of accomplishment to get more efficiency everyday and a sense of motivation to get even better.
7. As far as power, is concerned it is adequate. If you are in the power mode and you have 2-3 bars of battery, the car takes off easily. Haven't driven it on highway yet but managed to get to 90-100 kmph easily without any feeling of power being insufficient.
8. The 360 camera feature is a good addition even if the camera resolution is not great. It comes in handy.
9. Ventilated seats too is a plus in the NCR heat. Tested it in Oct when the car interirors heated up because of no shade in the parking. And immediately realised the worth of the feature.
10. Another feature that I agreed to let go of while deciding to go with the G variant is TPMS. It too is something that should be there in every variant f a car whenever possible.
11. I am now used to the "B" mode which utilises the regenerative braking to charge the battery. Not only it increases efficieny but also limits the use of brakes to a great extent. It will increase the life of the brakes too.
12. Ground clearance is sufficient for the bad under construction roads I go through everyday.


What could have been better
No car is perfect. And what an individual likes or dislikes about a car is very subjective.

1. The gear lever edge above the button is rough. You feel it every time you change the gears.
2. There should have been an indicator on the gear lever/console on which gear the car is in. Even though you can see it in the digital instrument display and HUD but I feel it is a miss.
3. The dual color theme in the interiors should have been provided by Maruti instead of keeping it all black for the strong hybrid variants.
4. The cladding is gloss black. It is a Plus in terms of the looks and it not getting faded in the future but had to get it PPFd too to protect it from sctractes.
6. The headlight and wiper controls should have been back-lit.
7. Rear seat is narrower and less roomier than what I and my family have been used to since past 8 years.


As far as the criticism goes here are my comments
1. The hybrid engine is noisy. It surely is if you rev it hard. If you drive normally and have music on at low volumes, you don't feel it.
2. The sunroof shade is cheap and ruins the experience. It is extremely thin. But I surely do not feel it ruins the experience at all. It definitely brings much needed light in the otherwise dark cabin. How it will play in the peak of the summers is yet to be seen.
3. Part sharing. Who doesn't? City and Jazz had almost identical e tire dashboards. Every other manufacturer does this. Why is Maruti being targeted for it is unfair.
4. The boot space is poor. It is indeed less. But for someone who needs that much amount of bootspace too often will never go with this car. For us as a family, we rarely go on road trips. It is adequate for us.
5. Headroom at the back. I am 6ft tall and have had no issue at all.


In the end, it is a wonderful car. Add Maruti's ease and low cost of maintenance and the superb fuel efficiency, it is an even better package.

[Hickstead]

Originally Posted by Otto

1) No butch looks and no advantage compared to Brezza
in the cabin space.


The GV is a larger car.
Anyone with a family and a kid traveling will tell you how much bigger it is.


2) Bad head room.

The average Indian height is 5'8". I'm 5'11" and I have no problem.
Can't be only me, can it?

3) Horrible part sharing from lower models.

This makes the parts cheaper because of the mass production.
Why anyone should complain for saving money is beyond me.

Horrible wpuld be when you have to spend a lakh for a steering wheel.

4) Bad execution of Sunroof with weak blind.

Won't comment.

I think sunroofs are overkill and should be banned.

5) Poor placement of battery hindering the boot space in Hybrid.

Please let us know which full hybrid mid size SUV has better battery placement?

1) Car is large externally. Surprisingly cramped inside, compared to competition.
2) Averages does not matter. Very poor headroom and this will be one of the main reasons from who rejected these Japanese twins.
3) How can people live with Swift / Baleno interiors after paying 24 L for a Hybrid.
4) It is contrary actually. Forget about ban. All cars above 20 L are going to come with Panoramic sunroofs. Market loves them.
5) Toyota placed Hybrid battery under the rear seat in Yaris cross, where the same drive train was used in Grand Vitara & Hyryder. They should have tried to implement it.

Incase of mild hybrid, Brezza is a better car compared to Grand Vitara at lesser price. Hybrid is a good pick though, with lot of compromises. Other than FE advantage, there is nothing that shouts in favour of these cars. Too expensive for a car which should be bought for just city use and lot of compromises for Highway or long drives. Service costs of Maruti are not really cheap. It is just a market perception. They are very close to Hyundai, Honda etc.

[car-o-phile]

Originally Posted by Hickstead

1) Hybrid is a good pick though, with lot of compromises.

Hi! What according to you are those compromises according to you other than:
1. Headroom (which I rarely see as a problem)
2. Baleno parts

It is surely expensive. Every car these days feel at least10% costlier. Hybrids fir now are demanding premium
And will continue to for some time

[GTO]

Quite interesting to see how perfectly timed the Grand Vitara & Hyryder were. Not only were they in time for the festive season, but Maruti / Toyota also chose a quarter when there were no other blockbuster launches that competed with them for eyeballs. Of course, other manufacturers too would have consciously avoided this period to clash with the 2 mega brands. The timing of car launches is a science perfected only by a few.

Just facelifts, updates & some premium car launches in the same quarter as the Grand Vitara / Hyryder. The last big bang launch was the Scorpio in the quarter prior. Official Reviews sorted by date:

[d-g-p]

Originally Posted by Hickstead

1) Car is large externally. Surprisingly cramped inside, compared to competition.
2) Averages does not matter. Very poor headroom and this will be one of the main reasons from who rejected these Japanese twins.

Felt the same after physically inspecting the car. The increase in dimensions has not transformed anything significantly inside the car compared to cars of same segment or of lower segment car Brezza. Brezza felt more airy with only about 25-30 litre less boot space. With almost similar weight in both cars, sheet metal has to be thinner in Grand Vitara. The price increases significantly though for visually larger car perception and road presence.

[Hickstead]

Originally Posted by d-g-p

Felt the same after physically inspecting the car. The increase in dimensions has not transformed anything significantly inside the car compared to cars of same segment or of lower segment car Brezza. Brezza felt more airy with only about 25-30 litre less boot space. With almost similar weight in both cars, sheet metal has to be thinner in Grand Vitara. The price increases significantly though for visually larger car perception and road presence.

Exactly ! We booked two Brezzas in our family. One was delivered last month and another is pending for early January delivery. I ranted a lot about the pricing of Brezza during the launch. But, now it has become value for money surprisingly compared to these twins.

[fluidic_fan]

After reading all the wonderful reviews, I have finally decided to take the plunge with Strong Hybrid Alpha Plus variant. But my dealer is saying that the Pristine accessories package is no longer available for new bookings. Can someone who booked recently please verify? I checked with Motorcraft Ghaziabad

[aniketi]

Originally Posted by drsachin

So where is the problem. The problem is this a new car which doesn't bring any "wow" factor or road presence which a new car brings with it. Everybody who is upgrading it's car or spending 20 LACs after he has spent around 10LAC before was expecting to bring home a car which has some wow factor for a 20LAC new car. Definitely missing.

Wow factors with Maruti for me -

1. Peace of mind !!! Most important for me and Maruti gives it more than 100% here.
2. Rock solid reliability - Hardly anything goes wrong with new Maruti or well maintained old one. I am using for last 13 years & not a single breakdown on highways or within city as well.
3. Fuel economy. All Maruti's deliver great average. Currently I am using 1.5 L engine petrol Ertiga & I easily get 19-20 on highways with 5-6 people and AC on, which is simply great.
4. Service costs - They are always reasonable, specially when you are alert & deny some extra things they ask for.
5. Spares - Spare parts are very reasonable in case of Maruti. Some parts are so cheap that you get surprised.
6. Availability of service and spare - Wherever you go, you will find a garage who can repair Maruti if needed. (I never needed it apart from regular servicing in last 13 years)
7. Initial cost - I got fully loaded Ertiga for 11.3 Lakhs last year. That time it was the most value for money car and it gives lots of flexibility for me.

Overall Maruti cars are really good for country like India where its still progressing and people are cost sensitive.

[driver52001]

My wow factors with Maruti are as follows: I have been upgrading 200 cc per jump every time I got a new car. It started with Alto 800 in 2013, then K10 in 2017, and Ignis K12 in 2020. I'd have happily continued with K10, but for the need of a little bit more space.

In all these years of owning Maruti cars, I haven't faced any problems. Service cost has been lower compared to what my Hyundai colleagues say at work. They are abuse-friendly too, though unintentional at it. They're fun to drive in the city, easy to handle and park. Starting from Ignis and above, all Maruti cars are fine for highway trips too. And for minor parts breaking here and there, the neighbourhood garage can instantly fix them.

Epilogue: I'd like to jump another 300 cc this time, and it's going to go in favour of the new Brezza. Grand Vitara is too expensive for me. The space inside too, as many have pointed out, is wee bit tight for a car of this size. I only want a biggish car that can live with like a hatchback for city but also take on the highway occasionally.

[headbanger]

What Maruti needs to do is put some better plastic quality across interiors and just differentiate each segment a little to get over this "wow". I don't know what stops them from making this incremental change. The mechanicals are sorted for the products, it's the aesthetics that need attention.

[FarPatel]

Originally Posted by aniketi

Wow factors with Maruti for me -

My thoughts exactly. And here's another point to add to your 'wow' factors: Dealer efficiency and cooperation.
I just received my GV Alpha Allgrip yesterday, less than three weeks after having sourced it in Pune. The dealer I had booked it with in Mumbai couldn't give me any kind of delivery schedule, quoting a vague 3-4 months every time I asked for an update since September. So, when I found that a dealer in Pune happened to have the variant I wanted readily available, without a second thought I started the procedure for my acquiring it.
The efficiency of this agency was amazing, at least for me. They did everything over the phone or email or whatsapp, did the Mumbai registration for me from Pune, and delivered the car to me at my residence in Mumbai yesterday.
The senior relationship manager himself came down in the car with another person who explained everything about the workings.
A not insignificant point they pointed out was that the display showed a fuel consumption of 22km/l for the Expressway trip. They even told me to track their progress during the trip, using their app so that I could see that they were adhering to my request to stay within the 80kph restriction advised in the manual. The manual is not supplied in hard copy by MSIL, so I found a pdf online, printed it out and got it bound for myself. I find paper much easier to refer to than scrolling up and down in my phone or notebook.
Well, I'm happy, my wife's happy so I'll take the comments by the GV bashers here with a pinch of salt. (I did take a test drive on Parsik Hill in Navi Mumbai earlier, with four not so light-weight persons and was not at all disappointed with its hill climbing abilities either.)
And I love the colour too. Chestnut brown, which also takes on various shades of green, depending on the sunlight shining on it.
Cheers.

[pannags]

Originally Posted by pannags

Have driven both the Hyryder and Grand Vitara mild hybrid ATs on longish drives and did not find the car lacking in power. Low end torque for crawling traffic is optimal. The paddle shifters lend you extra control for bursts of power that help with overtaking and speeding up.

I was reading through the experiences from BHPians driving the new XL6 AT powered by the K15C and 6 AT combination. I myself TDed the car a few months ago to understand how this powertrain performs, and like many others, found it underwhelming. Perhaps because I drove a NA petrol after many years of driving a diesel.

However, my experience driving the Maruti/Toyota twins with the same engine-gearbox combination has been markedly different. What confirmed this was a test drive report of the Brezza AT, which seems to drive more like the Grand Vitara than the XL6 or the Ertiga.

Then again, most early reviews mentioned otherwise, which leads me to the assumption that maybe the tuning on the production version of the mild hybrid variants has been improved for drivability.

[theabstractmind]

I'm admittedly a Maruti basher all my life but I will give a fairly neutral perspective.

I have liked few cars from Maruti Stable. First Gen Alto K10 for the upgrade it bought to the quality - fairly on par with the Santro then, the First Gen Swift, Ritz - the practical Swift - it had better interior quality than the Swift, the Wagon R gen 1 and 2 for their practicality, Ignis - I'm an outlier - liked the way it looked different, and S-Cross purely for its perceived quality.

Whenever I considered a Maruti though, something put me off. The leg space and seating of Alto ruled it out and took me straight to B2 segment when I bought the Punto. Then when I was looking for an automatic within a budget, the big car feel of Kwid and pathetic quality of the 2017 alto alongside space constraints put me off.

And, I never liked driving Marutis because their steerings wouldn't self center, except in the Ritz to a large extent. Ritz was very enjoyable. Yet, when trying to replace my Kwid, I gave the Ignis a try. The plastics still felt a grade lower than the price point, the AMT in Kwid felt better tuned, and finally the Steering. It just wouldn't return to center. Kwid had a better return to center action. And, the latest gen Swift feels like a toy when compared to the Kwid. Nothing in it feels worth the hype anymore. I had a similar feel with the Baleno; the Hyundai Elite i20 was the benchmark for quality and the Punto for ride and handling - the Baleno felt very light built and uncomfortable in comparison. That's what Marutis are bashed for I think. Though it doesn't mean one should not buy them. I fully understand the fuss free maintenance and resale value.

Finally, my experience with their dealers is also a bit underwhelming. Firstly, I have seen them trying to hardsell lower variants for flimsy reasons. Their Try Value cars are truly not value. I won't mention the reasons here, but they are just a local dealer in a polished environment. Shady enough. And the one time I was trying for Alto K10, their promises on booking wasn't very forthcoming - pure instinct.

And finally, I was in Toyota showroom to get my Yaris serviced. And I happened to check the Hyryder parked there. It felt underwhelming. Not as bad as Etios when it comes to the perceived quality, but not as solid as the Yaris as well. But fairly on par with VW/Skoda twins I would say in some aspects, but very boring. At that price point, it deserves better.

So, I think each brand is bashed with a reason. But it's the buyer's money and they are entitled to put their money where they like. Each one has a different set of preference and perceived notion of what that money is worth.

[Ritz2010]

Originally Posted by drsachin

So where is the problem. The problem is this a new car which doesn't bring any "wow" factor or road presence which a new car brings with it. Everybody who is upgrading it's car or spending 20 LACs after he has spent around 10LAC before was expecting to bring home a car which has some wow factor for a 20LAC new car. Definitely missing.

I was so fed with interiors and switched. But last week in a accessories store sat in owners 2022 Swift - dash has improved a lot.

If they make decent hybrid than those name sake hybrid they'll make a come back. But Nokia story is known - hope they don't disappear.