1st service and miscellaneous updates 1st Service: Actually this was done almost a month ago, immediately after my Wayanad trip. I did not have any particular issues to report, so this was a routine affair. Nothing out of the ordinary to report here. The service was handled very professionally and courteously by the dealer, and overall, I had a great experience. To some extent, I got to experience the famous Maruti service standard which is a welcome change for me (considering the service experiences on my previous car).
Along with the service, I got the whole interiors cleaned using "dry foam". This was also done very professionally and the interiors that had gotten really dirty during the Wayanad trip were cleaned up to almost original (i.e. when the car was new) condition. Design Flaw? By the way, another design flaw(well, not really sure if it is actually a flaw or just a problem in my car) I have noticed is with the windshield washer. Whenever I use windshield washer, the wipers get activated automatically. I don't like this. But there is ever more bad news. The wipers actually get activated a split second before the washers spray the water, and thus the first wipe is on almost dry glass. This is really terrible for the windshield. Ideally, I would like to switch this off and just spray enough water and then manually start the wiper. But I suppose there is no way to switch this auto-wipe feature off, nor is there a way to add some delay to the first wipe. I will appreciate it if other SX4 owners can please share their experiences on this. Saturday road trip: Last Saturday, we drove to Yercaud and came back the same day. We had been there before, so this trip was primarily to enjoy the drive on the fabulous NH7 (Bangalore to Salem) and the beautiful mountain drive from Salem to Yercaud.
For the first time on this car, I could achieve speeds of about 120kmph, and I got a good feel of how the car behaves at that speed. As expected, the engine did a great job. For example, I was able to cleanly accelerate from 100kmph to 120kmph in reasonably quick time without having to downshift to 4th gear and without any noticeable strain on the engine. Overtaking (which had to be done on numerous occasions thanks to the slow moving truck traffic on NH7) was never a problem and hardly ever required downshifting. Even the climb from Salem to Yercaud was easily managed in mostly 3rd and sometimes 2nd gear, with only on a rare occasion requiring use of 1st gear.
I found the car to be perfectly stable at 120kmph, and I am not sure if I am getting used to the EPS or what, but I found even the steering feel quite adequate at that speed. Now my only crib with the EPS is the lack of feedback or in general lack of any feel at slow speeds.
I am just loving the firm ride. Sure, it does become a pain on bad roads, but when you drive on smooth roads (as was the case with this drive; this entire drive was on smooth tar roads), the firm ride is a pleasure, specially at high speeds! There is no "floatyness" whatsoever even at high speeds. I really enjoyed the ride.
The tyres did quite OK this time. Even at 120kmph, I did not find the tyre noise to be that bad; certainly not as bad as what I had expected from these tyres. However, this could be because of the smooth tar roads I drove on. I still haven't driven the car at high speeds on a cement road, so I can't comment on the worst-case tyre noise from these tyres. Regarding the grip, since the road conditions were significantly better than those in Wayanad (unpaved roads with a lot of mud and slush) where I felt a lack of grip, I did not find any issues with the grip. However, the grip was still a tad less than what I expected from 205 wide tyres, even on dry roads. This is not noticeable on straight roads (regardless of speed), but is only noticeable when I take sharp turns (e.g. on mountain roads) even at slow speeds.
At speeds above 100kmph, the wind noise is a bit loud, thanks to aerodynamically poor shape of SX4. It is still not a major issue, and certainly not very annoying, but nonetheless one can hear the wind noise quite clearly in the cabin. In fact, the wind noise at these speeds completely suppresses the engine noise and hence I could not really listen to the engine at speeds of about 120kmph. I wanted to feel how the engine sounds at that speed on a nice smooth road, but all I could hear was the wind noise.
On the positive side, I must say that the great seating position, fantastic visibility on the front, and the ergonomically designed cabin makes it a very comfortable experience to drive this car. I did not feel tired even after driving it for a bit more than 8 hours pretty much at a stretch (except for a lunch break at Yercaud). By the way, I realized the value of USB port for the music system and the steering mounted audio controls. I had put a 8GB pen drive into the USB port and could listen to pretty much all of my music collection (which fortunately fits into 8GB) without having to change CDs and all with using controls on the steering wheel. I am now absolutely convinced that USB port and steering mounted music controls are must have features for any future car!
Finally, a quick update on fuel economy. I filled up the tank at the HP petrol pump on NH7 (before Krishnagiri toll booth) on my way to Yercaud, and while returning, refilled the tank at the same pump and using the same nozzle. The distance covered between these two fills was 337.6km and the fuel consumed was 24.12L. This means I got 14kmpl, and I am very happy with this number. And this includes the fairly big climb from Salem to Yercaud.
And before I end this post, here are a couple of pictures of my car at Yercaud.
Thanks,
-AD |