[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by rahul_intlad

In an auto show on a popular news channel,the U-va was being reviewed where the host goes on to say that the U-va felt more planted to the road whereas that is not the case with the swift,would like to know the truth about this from anybody having driven the two cars.

uva is heavy car and it is based on aveo it does have a better suspension setup than swift so it rides and feels better planted than the swift

[GeekSrik]

After having car dreams all night long yesterday after 3 test drives, i wanted to go back to the tata showroom to show my wife the palio (since it was cheaper than the rest I had test driven). I had bought my earlier maruti 800 at bimal motors indiranagar. Just before I left i called bimal on whether i can have a test drive of the swift diesel VDi and they said i can. so i changed my mind and took my wife along. On the way i stopped over to the getz showroom and she had a look at santro and getz that i had test driven earlier yesterday. since the executive was taking too much time, i told him i ll be back and i went ahead to bimal.

Knowing the showroom well, the moment I went in, i was offered a test drive and the keys to the VDi were in my hand. It was an ozone blue colour car, pretty nice looking and a unique colour in the market as of today. Put my wife in the back seat, executive in the left seat in front, ane me on the driver seat! Jet Set Go!

Started car. No noise. Super silent. Cross checked twice, was sure that the car was on.Had to do some twists and turns on reverse to take the car out, but the super power steering was only more than eager to respond to me. It was in this same forum i had once commented that the power steering felt too puny for me. Somehow that feeling was not so this time. The executive (a lady ) was feeling hot (a pun there) and she wanted to put on the a/c. so the a/c was on level 2. now for the route. from Bimal, one long straight road (same as the getz drive earlier) all the way on the flyover, down the ramp, a super sprint on ring road, a u-turn, back on flyover down again stop and go traffic and one final u-turn.

I must mention that maruti has done a wonderful job on the gear swift (oops shift!). Its so effortless and slots in just perfectly (except again for the fifth and reverse gear, wonder why i feel like this with all other cars too!). Put it into 1st gear and the diesel engine had no noise at all. it didnt allow me too much into first gear, guess the car didnt like it, so i slotted into second and then came the torque. the wonderful torque was very evident in the way the car managed stop and go and its extremely easy to stop and go only on second gear due to this. i revved hard and i could easily touch 60 in second gear. i changed into third and then into fourth (again me an 800 owner, so i had to remind myself - hey there is another gear!!) the flyover up ramp was fast approaching and here we were, 3 people a/c on level 2 and quite an empty road in front of me. so i revved hard and the car marginally slugged forward. this is where i got an opinion, maruti, is this all the show about? was carefully seeing the RPM meter this time, in about 2 seconds i touched 1500rpm and then what happened was just nirvana! the car flew like a bullet out of the traffic with everyone left behind just staring blank. wonderful maruti, wonderful fiat i already touched 80 and slotted into fifth this time. revved the gas pedal harder, again reached 1500rpm in 2 seconds, and the car shot off like a scalded cat. i cant believe all this happened so smoothly that all i knew was a feeling i had as though i was on an airplane that was on its take off speed. oh boy! its simply unbelieveable that a new age 16 valve 4 cylinder, DOHC 1.3 MJD was performing so brilliantly. after the great high, i realised i had to handle this cannon gun more carefully lest it fire up again and i slowed down a bit again onto the ramp of the flyover after a superb u-turn. with its turning radius of 4.75, its able to be nifty to take u-turns like a merry go round for children. when i came down the flyover at that speed, i heard a sudden rattle of some body part - the car had done 2200km already and the clutch was more free play - maruti, what been happening lately with those rattles dear? looks like you havent corrected yourself.

i again encountered stop and go traffic and i tried driving this car with 1st gear with a.c, 1st gear without a.c, 2nd gear with a.c and 2nd gear without a.c. and though in second it hesitated a bit to move forward, it was more than willing to do so in both gears irrespective of the fact of the ac being on or off. a final u-turn brought me back to bimal and the girl next to me seemed to be having goose pimples the way i drove, with a shocked look on her face.

after the adrenalin rush, here are a few things about the car itself (this time in reverse order after first driving the car!)

- seats are comfy for four people, the fifth if bulky cant sit properly behind, so its best to take this as a super comfy car for 4
- remote boot release and fuel cap release avaialble
- immobilizer also present in vDI
- a/c is great in both level 1 and 2, more higher not required it chills sufficiently
- side view mirror good and sturdy and can be mechanically adjusted from inside
- rear view mirror sucks big time and is too small and obstructs view of the back side id people are in the car, i have a mirror attached to the rear view mirror over and above it, for 375 rupees, which gives a wide and good view of the behind.
- lots of space on dashboard and can be used practically.
- rear passenger comfort is good and my wife didnt feel thrown about even on potholed roads.
- showroom will change me to alloys (tubeless tyres on all models) at 16k for aura and will take my original rims for a marginal amount, dunno how much
- boot space is as much as indica or santro, but less usable. suitcases wont fit in properly maybe bags will. this is the only biggest compromise i have to make vis-a-vis a thousand other benefits of this car.
- digital odo, good maruti, you are up with the rest
- not much silver trims or wood trims, maruti has kept it black, maybe not that boring though
- with abs and ebd, this car is enough safety and is also like a tank in terms of agility and handling, a tad bit lower than palio though!
- with a ground clearance of 170mm, i couldnt test if it was suffient to soak up humps, but its atleast as good as my 800. so thats ok!

they are offering upto 1.65 for my old maruti 800 which is truly true value. but with a damn 3 month wait period maruti will lead by monopoly rather than by a good example! though the executive didnt know much on new baleno, i believe it should certainly have a 1.9, 140 BHP MJD engine from fiat and would be priced about 9 lacs, still a great value and can be compared to corolla and the likes if quality fit and finish are done well. trust maruti will be right onto that job. atleast they are quite capable. honda city get ready to pack up if this happens. your luxury excuse wont hold good for long!!

i might finally make the booking for an ozone blue swift VDi by tomorrow if things go well. an amount of 50k and a wait of atleast 2 months. i m ready for that for this beautiful performance oriented car. needless to say reliable service from maruti anytime anywhere. but please mr.jagdish khattar, stop those rattles on the swift before you lose the COTY 2008 with this car or the bigger new baleno.

OTR prices - 5.43 LDI, 5.76 VDI (no much discounts at this time)

Adieu folks.

[ported_head]

I TD the VDi too the other day. Torque, all of 190 Nm, peaks by 2000 rpm. Makes city driving a breeze. Engine revs sooper fast from 2k to 4k. Torque starts to drop pretty rapidly from around 3k it seems. Power peaks at 4k I think. I secretly wanted to trade in my petrol Swift for the VDi. Sure it's blissful about 4k rpm, but how many times do I actually get to be there? How bad can it be, if I can have the same feeling in city driving all day. Be prepared for rattles, windows and dashboard. There are better built interiors out there.

[Dippy]

Fantastic review Geek

Seems thats you finally found your dream car. Good luck on the purchase

P.S I merged the thread you made with this one

[nitrous]

After the Verna CRDi did it, its the Swift VDi that made me prefer the diesel version of a car to its petrol variant.
This ,Im talking purely as a performance enthusiast.
This MIGHT change if Maruti considered us and gave a 1.6 liter Baleno engine instead of the boring G13B.
Atleast, the Zxi with all the frills can come with the 1.6 and would make commercial sense to them too!

[AkMar]

Geek, absolutely fabulous report. I felt as if I was actually travelling in the car. Good to know that Swift diesel is an excellent performer.

But, i feel that it is a bit overpriced at rs 5.5 lakh.

Anyways, looks like its worth every ruppe of what the buyer pays

[rahul_intlad]

Sriky I just read through all your reviews[4 till last count] and all where simply outstanding,yes don't expect discounts just yet for the swift diesel at least since it is pretty much the in thing at the moment.However you will definitely get discounts for the petrol version and I think rattles should be less in the petrol version compared to the diesel one.However no doubt that the diesel is the more fun to drive option as pointed out by nitrous.

But I suggest you check out the logan too, now that you have extensively checked almost all competitors for the swift.I have not checked out the vehicle myself so am in no position to comment about the Logan.However in terms of VFM,if the lack of boot space is not a major problem,and as you pointed out if you just want to seat 4 people then the swift diesel it is what you should opt for.

[GeekSrik]

Originally Posted by Dippy

Fantastic review Geek

Seems thats you finally found your dream car. Good luck on the purchase

P.S I merged the thread you made with this one

Thanks mod!

Originally Posted by rahul_intlad

Sriky I just read through all your reviews[4 till last count] and all where simply outstanding,yes don't expect discounts just yet for the swift diesel at least since it is pretty much the in thing at the moment.

But I suggest you check out the logan too, now that you have extensively checked almost all competitors for the swift.I have not checked out the vehicle myself so am in no position to comment about the Logan.However in terms of VFM,if the lack of boot space is not a major problem,and as you pointed out if you just want to seat 4 people then the swift diesel it is what you should opt for.

I am happy to say i finally booked a swift diesel VDi arctic white by paying bimal 50k today. unbelievably, its gonna take an agonizing 4 months for the car to come out according to them in this much sought after colour. but hopefully it ll come earlier than that. i m 27 on the queue, and if people cancel their cars due to wait time, or the car gets delivered earlier, i should pass this number in 2 months. arguably there is no other diesel yet in the market so i have nothing to lose if i wait around for this one.

that aside, i want to also accumulate some money to pay upfront so the 2-3 months wait period gives me that opportunity to do so. in fact the lesser the loan the better what with car loans at 13-14% and personal loans around 18-21% what has this country come to? sheeesh.

thanks all for your opinions, hopefully i have a winner on my hand, whenever it comes!

[Jaggu]

OT:

congratz GS!!

you also placed ur choice on the white eh.. dont worry, maruti has increased allotments from 15 to 30 cars to dealers for Vdi so the wait should come down..

wrt loan best is to shelve as much as possible from your hand and keep the financing to min..

[GeekSrik]

one off topic question since i didnt know where else to put and was not in mood to start a new topic on this:

should i change my tyres from 165 , 14" tubeless steel ones, to 185, 14" tubeless alloys for the swift, the money comes to a whopping 15k more which i cant afford now, so i thought i shall run the car for atleast 10-15kkms before making that change, since the old rims, tyres dont fetch me much anyways! any thoughts?

i am also planning for a teflon coating at 3800/- from 3M, and a window tint from 3M again at around 3k.

will anyone also let me know how much will it cost for ovion or stanley leather seats for the whole car? is it really required to put that or can i also try g-sport art leather or the local art leather ones? any inputs are appreicated.

[Jaggu]

post it here http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...s-here-39.html

[ravibhat]

Good Review GeekSrik, good choice I hope!

After owning multiple MUL cars I realized MUL cars have many qulity glitches and fit and finish not upto mark like Hyundai/honda/toyota cars.

Swift has lot of issues with ratling and few other issues.

If you upgrade from M800 to Swift you will be veyr happy customer.

But someone buy Swift after owning Santro/Pailo/Getz or any mid size sedan (except tat/mul ..) they hate Swift,

So you never hate Swift after owning it, I am sure. Be carefull with BIMAL they are to bad in sales and service.

All the best!

Regards,

Ravi.

[GeekSrik]

Originally Posted by ravibhat

Good Review GeekSrik, good choice I hope!

After owning multiple MUL cars I realized MUL cars have many qulity glitches and fit and finish not upto mark like Hyundai/honda/toyota cars.

Swift has lot of issues with ratling and few other issues.

you are comparing hyundai with honda! refinements are good no doubt in all the three you told, but the cost of hyundai service is slighty more, and their new prime is underpowered. wonder what their CRDi would be? the only reason i went in for swift, is a fiat engine (i love fiat) and maruti customer care. i was watching the auto show on cnbc, and this is the order of customer care winners -> 1. maruti, 2. ford, 3. hyundai and mahindra !! and 4. tata (now with fiat too).

as i had earlier indicated in one of my posts i had said that i would not be surprised if mahindra edged out tatas in customer satisfaction and the show confirms the same feeling! i dont want to hurt tata owners sentiments, but somehow they dont seem to be moving up the charts in customer satisfaction.

If you upgrade from M800 to Swift you will be veyr happy customer.

But someone buy Swift after owning Santro/Pailo/Getz or any mid size sedan (except tat/mul ..) they hate Swift,

So you never hate Swift after owning it, I am sure. Be carefull with BIMAL they are to bad in sales and service.

my first car was a 2 times used 800, i was a third owner. still liked it. paid 1.4 lacs for a 40k km car. my second one was a palio, liked that too except for hard clutch. my third one was again an 800 for economy and ease of use reasons. my fourth will be a swift diesel. well the real reason is there is a maruti service center right next road to mine, so its easy for me. they are extremely prompt too with car services and spare parts are cheap as well, though i still cannot say the same w.r.t. swift spares. i believe that maruti knows too well how to retain their customer satisfaction results. their sheer number of service centers are enough to service any of their cars. i know of friends who dumped palio and went in for baleno just because the car refused to start while on the highway and they paid a high price for it to be towed and serviced, and with the waste of time too.

my sales experience with bimal has been good for my current 800. i dont service with them at all. so i dont think i need worry about that part. what particularly in sales do you say is wrong or not fully well?

i ve made a decision to stick onto maruti for another innings. lets hope they remain on top of the charts with the new fiat engine journey.

OT: for sure i know fiat wont evince personal interest in service of palios part since they have for all practical reasons given it off to tata to take care of. ford somehow manages to keep customers happy on the JD satisfaction survey, wonder how! even though they have good cars, their maintenance is costly and some service centers arent so good, surprising. in terms of sales though tata pipped hyundai to the second place just now. we ll have to see as time goes by how it will be.