Firstly, my greetings to the Team-BHP community and this is my first post in a forum with such a wide spread reach. Cheers!!!
I wanted to share my experiences on owning the WagonR Duo. The owner ship to this wonderful vehicle came in 2010 when I wanted to get off from used vehicles and adding to my desire came a delightful discount from the dealer in Hyderabad, Mithra agencies which made me choose this vehicle without second thoughts.
Buying experience -
My decision to look for a new vehicle started in Feb 2010, when I approached the Maruti dealer in Hyderabad, Mithra Agencies and while inquiring through the vehicles and their prices, the dealer offered me to pick a vehicle manufactured in January, 2009. It was a year already that the vehicle was manufactured, I was skeptical initially, but the dealer assured me on its genuinity and the quality of the vehicle. I was also also offered a discount of around 40k for this purchase. I traded off my indica which fetched me about 75k including bonus and loyalty discounts. So I effectively paid around 3.2 lacs for the new WagonR duo, which perfectly suited my wallet. The choice of the duel fuel - Petrol+LPG was icing on the cake which offered low running costs with minimum maintenance and the vehicle never let me down.
My companion -
Driving Experience and Efficiency -
I have used my vehicle for office commutes and city driving with occasional long drives. The vehicle lived up to all its expectations for the past three years without any hassle.
The efficiency figures were always consistent with about 12km to the liter when run on LPG in the city when driven consistently with AC and about 14km to the liter when driven on petrol. On long drives it gave a combined average of about 16km to the liter.
The car had a good driving experience when driven in city conditions at speeds up to 60km. Upon reaching the 100kmph mark is where the car started to show the signs of strain. The performance was consistent when driven with in its expected limits.
The gear ratios made for the city come to a problem when driven on the highway which required frequent gear changes. Adding to this fact was the use of LPG which reduced the power delivery which gets noticeable when overtaking vehicles. This made the need for frequent gear changes and one had to think of before overtaking.
Suspension and ride quality
The suspension was well tuned to the city conditions which covered most of the unevenness without much problems. But one had to be careful and very slow while negotiating tall and narrow speed breakers.
I had hit the underpart a couple times because of this. Additional cladding could have helped here.
Highway driving
I had just two trips on the highway, one to Vijayawada and one to Guntur in this vehicle. Both of the trips were made before the express way was finished.
We had four adults travelling in both the trips and all of us were pretty comfortable when it came to seating.
From the driveability, the small 1L engine could not keep up to the highway traffic and adding to it was the LPG.
Overtaking on a busy stretch required frequent gear changes which posed a problem.
City driving
This is where the car never posed a problem. The light clutch and the gear ratios made it a easy pet in the city.
I occasionally used it to office commutes which was about 18km one way and I never had problems.
Road grip and stability
With the small tyres that come with this vehicle, city driving never was a problem. Negotiating curves warranted a serious reduction in speed because of which curves and uphills required gear changes.
Braking
Brakes were pretty decent and provided enough resistance to get the car to a halt pretty quickly. But this is where the Type-1 Wagon R excels. It has got excellent braking and just a touch on the pedal would do the job.
Seating et.al -
The comfort department was well laid with 4 passengers getting good support from the seating. Being about 5ft 10, I occasionally experienced problems with the seat height and the missing lumbar support, which I managed to partially solve by using a cushion which partially raised the seating position with additional thigh support.
A seat height adjuster would have been a plus. Being a tall boy design, the car did not offer any adventurous maneuvers and one had to be thoughtful while negotiating curves
Fit and Finish
The vehicle had a decent fitment quality, for the price paid. Even though some of the parts looked plastic, especially the door handles and the door internals, they were not out of place.
Maintenance, Problems and fixes -
This is the department where the car scores its full marks. It absolutely costed minimal in this regard with just the routine service as per the schedule. The anomalies that I found to the schedule was the maintenance of the battery, checking of the coolant in the radiator and the condition of the air filter.
After the second service, I experienced a great power loss and the vehicle did not seem to pull. After giving a thought, I noticed that the fluid level in the battery came down drastically which caused this. After that I started to check the water level once a month.
The next thing was with the coolant. In spite of the service guys telling that everything is fine, I was not happy with the coolant which was just plain water. When I drained it I saw signs of rust coming and I immediately changed it and I have maintained a record of changing the coolant every six months.
The third thing is the air filter. Though the user manual recommends that it need not be changed till 40k kms, I feel it pretty odd with the present climatic and city conditions. Until the engine breathes freely, it will never be able to perform optimally citing the power to weight ratio of this vehicle.
Checking these three made my WagonR a happy machine to drive.
Likes and Dislikes
What I liked about this vehicle -
No frills design
Consistent performance and efficiency
Easy maintenance
Very good HVAC performance. It used to cool the vehicle very quickly and effectively even in peak summers. Both the driver and the passengers were at ease because of this.
Extensive Maruti support
The major dislikes -
A missing top end variant which made me to separately equip the car with accessories
Noticeable power loss in LPG because of the meager 1L engine.
Reduced luggage space because of the LPG tank. This was the major concern. The room for the spare tyre was taken up by the LPG because of which the tyre was placed in the boot. This almost halved the storage space. One had to carefully plan the vacations to minimize luggage.
Overall experience
Until now, I have covered about 18250 kms, which is far less than most people do in about 3 years, but it has never troubled me.
I had decided that I will retain the car for either 3 years or 40k kms and the 3 years is already completed.
In a conclusion, this is a city vehicle and can occasionally be used for highway commutes in short distance.
I recently traded this companion with another, the Ritz. I have been loyal to the brand Maruti and getting used to the tall boy design, the pick to Ritz was natural.
Will share my experience with the Ritz another day.
Cheers Team-BHP!!! :thumbs up
Some glimpses of my vehicle (dont mind the backgrounds as these were shot in my house which is now a relic in Hyderabad :D)
All these pictures were shot with a Nikon D-40
