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Is this with synthetic oil? Maruti service is almost par with VW/Skoda now! :Frustrati

+1.

ZXi - 185/70 R14 for the older one.

Yes buddy, synthetic oil - Shell 5W40. Rs1008/lt.

Thanks for the correction.

Anurag.

Maruti's labour charges have become quite expensive and am seeing escalations every year. Also, all even services (20K kms, 40K kms and 60K kms) are more expensive than the odd ones for the Swift because of the requirement of fuel filter replacement, transmission oil change and a couple of other items and also because the 20K kms service is the first paid service. I have spent roughly Rs. 10K for each of these services, even when I am sticking to mineral oil. When I had the 20K kms service done, Maruti was insisting on replacing the entire fuel filter housing with sensors and the filter cartridge costing some Rs. 3,000 which increased the service bill. Thankfully, of late, they have started using a service kit costing roughly Rs. 1,500 which includes the oil filter, air filter and fuel filter cartridge.

I had also spent a similar amount for the 50K service when various bushes on the suspension, steering joints and lower arms were replaced. The labour itself for removal and refitting the sub frame for the front wheels was around Rs. 600 and for steering greasing was around Rs. 1,000. Intercooler and EGR valve cleaning along with labour cost around Rs. 2,500 each and the cost of the new coolant is additional when you get the EGR valve cleaned.

But in case of Maruti, this value of Rs. 10K comes because of the additional services like Intercooler, EGR valve cleaning you opt for. Standard service of just replacing the oil, oil filter, air filter and fuel filter still amounts to around Rs. 4,500 albeit with mineral oil and labour. Add around Rs. 2,000 more for synthetic oil.

For VW, Rs. 10K would replace the oil, oil filter, air filter and fuel filter and cover the general service. Any additional items would cost over and above this. So, on a service by service comparison, Maruti is still relatively cheaper. Please note that for Maruti, service intervals are 10K kms/1 year whichever is earlier and for VW, it is 15K kms/1 year whichever is earlier. So if your running is less than 10K kms a year, maintaining a Maruti may be cheaper. However, if your running is more than 10K kms a year, like mine is, you will have to get your Maruti serviced twice or more in a year, depending on your running, thereby increasing the cost of ownership.

I agree!

The transmission pull will now be replaced at 40K rather than 20K a earlier. Rest being same.

That is surprising buddy. With synthetic oil I can expect process to shoot up but with mineral oil there is something that needs to be looked into.

Can I know why the whole housing + sensors?

+1. This is sine new thing that I noticed when my Swift went for 20K service recently.

I guess you had problems with the car during this service hence the need for replacing the bushes etc. If these replacements weren't there again coats should have been down.

I do these additional services only if I feel there is a change in performance / FE otherwise these are just omitted, keeping costs down.

So it all boils down to the customer as to what type of oil he wants.

My yearly running is approximately 40K kms so I service my car every 3 months. :D

Anurag.

I wonder if someone can shed some light on my rather nutty problem.

In June last year, a rather friendly neighbourhood rat, deemed it fit to move into my Swift when it was parked. Parking on the road is normal for the normal, average bloke who is in love with Bombay, so there was no helping it, apart from chucking out the comfy bed that the rat built every other day (the front left corner, inside of the fender seems like a favourite). The rat was not, understandably, very pleased with the state of affairs and made his displeasure known by chomping into the boot for the ball-socket joint in the tie-rods.

Well, that was the beginning of rather interesting times for my Swift and me. The Swift, dear girl, advertised the hurt by clunking rather loudly every time I happened to run over a pebble or for that matter a bump, of which, Bombay has plenty thanks to the paver blocks. The MASS at Prabhdevi lent their ears to her and ordered a new steering assembly, as the quaintly called the item on the invoice which left my wallet lighter by around 8K.

All was fine and dandy for the next 7 months and I learnt to leave the rat, who promptly moved back in, at peace. The famed "Spirit of Bombay" was very pleased with its handiwork and smiled at the rat and me.

Once the 7 months winged past, the Swift decided that she did not like the steering to be locked when twirled right. This disapproval was communicated to me through a rather alarming and disconcerting "piiinnggg" every time I found the lock on twirling the steering to the right. This happened quite often given the expansive parking spots that are normally available to the chap who is not able to afford a parking lot in the building he puts up at.

The MASS blokes swapped the steering assembly again, having been unable to figure out the source of the sonar pings and voila!, the pinging disappeared. This time round my extended warranty stepped in like the gentleman he is and save my wallet from emaciation. This heroic act was some 6 months ago.

Now, as I type, the Swift says that she is not too pleased about the conditions of our roads. How? The clunking of course! From the front left corner. Every time a pebble says hello. From the sound of it, my Swift detests Pune. The clunking gets worse there.

Now, I have no clue about what is to be done. Specially with a road trip staring me in the face. A new steering assembly, as droll the idea of a new one is, takes the better part of a fortnight to show up.

What can a chap do? Help!

I clock 16K kms a year and have been driving the Swift for 2 and a half years now. Loved it so much that bought another one too!

Sigh.

I had a Sony XAV63 double DIN VD head unit in my VDI. It is a nice unit with good sound quality for the price a complete VFM set with time alignment and useful feature like rear bass engine. But lately my usage has declined and started listening to FM mostly, so i changed the unit to that of the stock Z's because it fulfils my basic requirements and looks good in the dashboard. So the Sony was removed and OEM Nippon put in its place.

For my 20 k km service, I recently got a quote of 9.5k with semi synth (castrol GTX) for my ZDi at Bimal Auto. This quote did not include wheel balancing and allignment since i always get that done every 7.5 k kms at Tyre empire. There were no additional repairs etc that needed to be carried out since the car was running flawlessly anyways. I almost considered pushing it all the way to 25k kms.

Either ways, I just told the SA that I should have just gotten myself a SKODA rather than pay 10 k and then some to do basic servicing for a Maruti. Pete's to the rescue. Since my car is already running a Stage 1 remap, Shibin offered up to change all the fluids, including the transmission oil, all filters replaced, Wheel balancing & Allignment done, break pads replaced. SA @ Maruti had told me break pads need attention. Engine flushed, in goes OWS Synthetic engine oil and transmission oilclap:

Picked up the car yesterday, runs like a dream as always. Since its remapped, the mental HP figures post fully synth oil change havent shot up as much as I expected, maybe the engine is just warming up to the good stuff. Whatever it is, the new oil seems to have made the engine a little more free revving and black smoke while pushing the car has vanished/reduced. Very typical of a car running fresh oil or is it OWS doing its magic? We'll know as the car clocks in a couple o thousand kms I guess.

Now for the fun part, the cost, wait for it....... 12.5 K stupid: Throw in the car cleaning treatment that the car gets at Shibin's, in my head thats 12 g's well spent I guess. In the long run, this may not be a sustainable model I guess, or is it?. Lets hope my car does not get used to so much pampering. Ciao

Couple of days back, I tried my friend's 2013 Swift VXI which had done 14 K . A brief ride in city & on highway, total of 10 km or so. I liked the car very much except two things-

1. My left knee needed more space. The center console should have been slimmer or should have designed in a way which would have permitted my left knee to move further left. The console felt too restricting. Grand i10, in this regard, felt much better.

2. Poor cabin insulation. Every thing outside was very audible even with AC on.

I was surprised with the average FE shown in the MID. I was alone in the car. Highway MID FE showed 19.5 kmpl @ speeds of 80-110 kmph. In city, it was around 14.5 kmpl, where as in same city conditions, my diesel car shows a MID FE of 12.5 kmpl. I am sure, if this car is driven at 80 kmph on highways, it should easily return 20+ FE even with AC, and in flowing city traffic, it should be 15-16 kmpl. Really impressive for a petrol car. What is the actual FE petrol owners are getting?

Had read about this somewhere on the forum itself. Will find out more about this at my 80K service since I had the transmission oil replaced at the 60K service

Service costs hit Rs. 10K at my 50K service when I had the bushes replaced and steering column greased and then again at 60K when I had the intercooler, EGR valve cleaning undertaken. Prior to that, even services hovered around the Rs. 7K mark. My 70K service which I recently had done costed me Rs. 3,000 and change.

This was the practice adopted by Maruti when they launched the new Swift in August 2011 and directed service stations to replace the entire unit for all such 'new Swifts'. However, I escaped this when the Vitesse guy managed to just replace the internal filter cartridge at my 20K service. Haven't changed the entire unit till date.

Yes, Mumbai roads tend to do that to your car:D. And yes again, this entire replacement of bushes along with labour made up around 40% of my invoice. Had also replaced the front brake pads during this 50K service which added to my invoice.

Same here. I did mine at the 60K service since these are recommended to be done every 40K as per the manual. But I did not see any tangible benefits so will be avoiding it in future anyways since my warranty has expired.

Not necessarily. It seems after Maruti made the pact with FIAT to also source the entire multijet engine as a unit, a circular was issued by Maruti to all M.A.S.S. directing them to use Synthetic oil for all Swifts and Dzires beyond a certain VIN. My car falls before that specific VIN and is among the first lot of the new Swifts so I take shelter under this circular. But after sometime, I had seen another circular which a member had posted on this forum which allowed the customer to decide what type of oil he/she wanted but I may not be certain if this was the exact line used in the circular or not.

Installed the front air dam skirt in my Swift. This should have been the part of the car installed from the factory but i guess Maruti thought to save Rs500 there and the new Swifts do not come with this. My 2012 Swift had it but 2014 Swift doesn't have it. Three new holes had to be made in the bumper to install this, 3 were present, total 6 holes.

Sorry for the dumb question, but what is the purpose/function of this skirt?

Helps the car aerodynamically as it channels the air flow under the car better and also protects the bumper base in getting scratched. :D

Anurag.

What he said ^^ :)

Basically it partially closes the open space under the front bumper area. When the car is moving the air dam (literally its a "dam") blocks the air creating a high pressure area, this blocked air is channeled under the dam at a higher velocity which in turn creates a low pressure zone which helps to keep the car planted on the road at higher speeds.

Without the skirt the air flow underneath the car tends to stick to the bumper and in the Swift at the same level as the bumper there are mechanical bits, the largest being the subframe, which falls in the path of airflow, this increases drag. This skirt which is approx 3cm in height helps clear all that mechanical stuff from the path of air flow as it separates the flow just at the back of the bumper.

--
Its a nice place to save Rs.500/- on ever Swift as far as Maruti is concerned coz nobody sees it or misses it!!

There are few other places of cost cutting in the 2014 Swift compared to my previous 2012 Swift, both are same generation cars. What i can remember off my head are the following:
Front seats - No inside plastic panel near the hinge
Front strut top caps - Partial rubber cap covering the nut instead of full rubber cap
AC/airflow control switches - Tactile feel is different of the Fan speed control switch
First aid kit - A cheap plastic pack instead of a zipper container

I lost this part a couple of years back due to a forced off-roading (on regular city roads during rains) breaking off two of these clips/holes and it ended up dangling from the rest of the mounts. I went to my FNG to get it repaired. He just pulled the entire thing out and said "now it is fine" :)

Does it make any difference in city traffic conditions? BTW, my bumper is already scratched at the bottom from the same incident and hence that protection is not a benefit. It would be difficult to put a new scratch in that line even if I wanted to!

The following is the mileage I get
City: in the range of 15-18KMPL in stop & go traffic of Bengaluru with full AC. The variation is large due to varying traffic conditions I have driven it.
Highway: ~18-20 KMPL.

The Max mileage I have got till now was 24KMPL on a roadtrip along the coast of Karnataka. On this stretch of the road trip speed was in the 60KMPH range, since the intent of the trip was to have drive on the scenic costal roads and there was no 'destination' to reach.