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Old 24th September 2010, 08:48   #91
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Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post
Good point. I had checked the cable length in Palio and it was big enough to reach the tyres of Palio when plugged in the cigarette lighter socket. I need to recheck the same for SX4 (for SX4 this length required will be longer due to longer wheelbase). Thanks for reminding me to check this.
Usually cable length is 3m, good enough for most cars. I have one similar to yours, I can fill even spare tire in boot!
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Old 24th September 2010, 10:16   #92
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Originally Posted by Dr.AD
I feel that it is never that easy to fix a puncture, and instead, it is lot easier to inflate the punctured tyre using this compressor and drive for a short distance or simply remove the wheel and use the spare wheel. Hence, I am not sure about the utility of a tyre repair kit. What do you guys think?
It would still be good to have the kit with you, as it would help when you are stranded at a remote location where the puncture-wallah could fix the tubeless puncture (possibly with instructions from you), but might not have the equipment to do it.
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Old 24th September 2010, 12:20   #93
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Wow that leather steering is absolutely amazing. for some reason maruti does not give us the machine stitched oem leather steering on our cars, even if we are willing to pay for it. i got a leather steering free with my car but neither does it match the steering cover and nor does it cover the whole steering and looks shoddy to boot. so now buddy tell me how much did the steering cover cost ya cause i wanna get my hands on that asap.
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Old 24th September 2010, 13:35   #94
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Originally Posted by Mpower View Post
Good thread AD. Amazing amount of detail you are providing there. I loved reading despite the fact that SX4 is not my fav. .
Thanks a lot. I am glad that you loved reading about the car that is not your favorite. I think this is the true power of team-bhp. I have also really enjoyed reading and appreciating several threads on cars I don't like.

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Originally Posted by Mpower View Post
The 1/4 and 1/2 dont mean much because the scaling could be different on the 3 cars.

Also, in the newer cars temp gauge is not really hardwired. Its motor driven and and controlled by the ECU. When its fixed like that, ECU is basically telling you not to worry. In reality the temp will be jumping up and down depending on AC load, airflow and gradient....kinda like your Palio.
This is a very interesting point that I did not know. In Palio, the temperature gauge reading does fluctuate a lot with parameters like AC load, airflow, gradient etc. as you mentioned. In SX4, it is rock solid at the half-way mark regardless of anything else, and I was wondering why. Now I understand this. So this means the SX4 gauge is not that much better than some cars which don't even have a gauge and have only a warning lamp for overheating. The whole point of an analogue gauge should be to show the exact temperature, and if this one is not doing that, then it is certainly not a great design. Anyway, thanks a lot for pointing this out.


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Originally Posted by supremeBaleno View Post
It would still be good to have the kit with you, as it would help when you are stranded at a remote location where the puncture-wallah could fix the tubeless puncture (possibly with instructions from you), but might not have the equipment to do it.
Very true. Completely agree with this point. So I guess I will buy this repair kit and carry it with me next time I go for a road trip outside city limits.

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Originally Posted by Zero Cool View Post
Wow that leather steering is absolutely amazing. for some reason maruti does not give us the machine stitched oem leather steering on our cars, even if we are willing to pay for it. i got a leather steering free with my car but neither does it match the steering cover and nor does it cover the whole steering and looks shoddy to boot. so now buddy tell me how much did the steering cover cost ya cause i wanna get my hands on that asap.
Well, the cost of the steering alone was quoted to something like Rs. 1900, and the quote for the handbrake was something around Rs. 600. Eventually, I got the total deal of Rs. 2200 for both steering wheel and handbrake. But it is absolutely worth it. I am now using it for close to three weeks and just love the feel of the leather in my hand and the fitting quality is fabulous. By the way this was done by Stanley and you need to go to them or some similarly skilled place to get a good job done. If you have a Stanley shop nearby your area, I highly recommend you get this done.
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Old 24th September 2010, 21:22   #95
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Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post
So this means the SX4 gauge is not that much better than some cars which don't even have a gauge and have only a warning lamp for overheating. The whole point of an analogue gauge should be to show the exact temperature, and if this one is not doing that, then it is certainly not a great design. Anyway, thanks a lot for pointing this out.
As long as temp is in the 'normal' band, the ECU will fix it to 'OK' position.

But still better than a light because it will still tell you when the engine is cold, warming, fully warmed, little bit overheated and severe overheat and maybe a couple of steps in between. Another reason is asthetics/design and peace of mind..people like the nice round gauges and they want to know everything is OK.

Last edited by Mpower : 24th September 2010 at 21:24.
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Old 28th September 2010, 22:42   #96
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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
Attached Thumbnails
Beast prevails over beauty. Story of my SX4-ZXi VVT-yercaud-021.jpg  

Beast prevails over beauty. Story of my SX4-ZXi VVT-yercaud-023.jpg  

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Old 27th October 2010, 12:52   #97
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I have done 20000 km in my SX4 in slightly over 14 months, and it has never let me down. Though at speeds over 120 kmph I do get a floating feeling, mainly due to the Vectra tyres. I have been told that stability will improve significantly if I upgrade tyres, which I will once the originals wear out.
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Old 1st November 2010, 10:45   #98
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Great writeup doc and thanks for all the information you have provided. I have booked SX4 ZXI yesterday and your thread has been very helpful for me to come to my decision.
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Old 1st November 2010, 12:30   #99
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Congratulations Wanderer!

Dr. AD, you should go out more often - the SX4 can handle all that our highways can throw up :-) Btw, only yesterday I was on NH7, doing a night drive. There were some nasty bulges in certain sections of the road (left side) - did you notice them? Probably the pitch expanded and rose due to the heat.
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Old 1st November 2010, 17:54   #100
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nilanjanray View Post
I have done 20000 km in my SX4 in slightly over 14 months, and it has never let me down. Though at speeds over 120 kmph I do get a floating feeling, mainly due to the Vectra tyres. I have been told that stability will improve significantly if I upgrade tyres, which I will once the originals wear out.
nilanjanray, great to hear that you had a relatively trouble-free experience with your SX4. I read in your thread that only problems you had faced are slight rattles and a squeaking seat. I have already started facing very slight rattles from the dashboard, so I unfortunately have to live with some rattle in future for sure. But apart from that, everything else is fine.

To be honest, I haven't yet reached speeds above 120 kmph for any noticeable stretch yet. At 120 kmph, I felt the car was OK (but definitely not as planted as my Palio). I think your Fortuner experience is going to spoil you and you will especially feel the lack of stability in SX4 compared to Fortuner.

As I mentioned earlier, my complaints regarding Vectras are not the high-speed drive, but the lack of grip on sharp turns even at low speeds.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer78 View Post
Great writeup doc and thanks for all the information you have provided. I have booked SX4 ZXI yesterday and your thread has been very helpful for me to come to my decision.
Thanks! And congratulations on your SX4! I am glad my review could be of help. Keep us posted on your SX4 experiences too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nilanjanray View Post
Congratulations Wanderer!

Dr. AD, you should go out more often - the SX4 can handle all that our highways can throw up :-) Btw, only yesterday I was on NH7, doing a night drive. There were some nasty bulges in certain sections of the road (left side) - did you notice them? Probably the pitch expanded and rose due to the heat.
Yes, I know I should go out for often. Unfortunately due to some ridiculously heavy workload at office, I could not drive out of Bangalore in the entire month of October. Bad month for my SX4! I hope to get time out for a major road trip towards the end of the year. Dreaming of a Bangalore-Goa road trip, but not sure if that will happen.

No, I did not notice any nasty bulges on NH7. The last time I drove there was towards end of September. So this must have got developed after that.
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Old 1st November 2010, 18:23   #101
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Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post
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.
Yes this is very very bad design, and I am sure will damage Windshield in long run.

Best way is to keep engine on, then push up the washer button full, at-least some water sprays before wiper starts. My Indica had button at the tip of wiper joy stick to just spray water

BTW I shifted to Apollo Aceler 205/60 R16, 1000km less to 40K km.

Pressure Horn were not working properly after 2.5 years of service, changed it today. Felt so good

I am consistently getting 11.5-12 km/l in city drive

Last edited by rkbharat : 1st November 2010 at 18:32.
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Old 1st November 2010, 18:35   #102
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Originally Posted by rkbharat View Post
Yes this is very very bad design, and I am sure will damage Windshield in long run.

Best way is to keep engine on, the push up the washer button full, atleast some water sprays before wiper starts. My Indica had button at the tip of wiper joy stick to just spray water
Thanks for the confirmation that this is not a problem just with my car. This annoys me so much that I almost avoid using the windshield washer and drive around with dirty windshield.

I like the simple design on Palio: it just sprays the water when I use windshield washer. It does not automatically start the wiper. I can spray enough water first and then in the end I start the wiper. I wish Maruti had used this simple mechanism instead of coupling wiper with washer and messing up on the timing.

Quote:
BTW I shifted to Apollo Aceler 205/60 R16, 1000km less to 40K km
Oh, Great! Please let us know your experiences with Aceler. How much did they cost you? A detailed review of the differences you felt between Vectra and Aceler would be highly appreciated. Sorry if you have already posted this and somehow I missed this.
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Old 22nd November 2010, 11:52   #103
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Hi there
Let me begin by telling you that I 'am almost a fan of your review, one of the most detailed and comprehensive review on SX4.
After having read a thread by Smartcat comparing various Sedans under 12L to which you too have Significantly contributed , I was Surprised to find that our sanity of judgment questioned, of course nothing Short of it, by the SX4 ranking. And what more the worst part was the very virtue, ‘drivability’ being underrated -especially of a car that we find an absolute delight' to drive both within city and on high way.
I did find it a little too odd that a car which is among the first 5 in performance, is so bad in 30-80 km/hr in 3rd gear or 40- 100 km/hr in gear, My s×4 does it b/w 11.5-12.5sec and 40- 100km/hr in about 20sec. Please check that out on your VVT, possibly a change in the engine or ECU settings could have improved the drivability factor in VVT models.
The comparison itself to begin with was not done under standard testing conditions by a single unbiased test team, and therefore cannot be fool proof despite all mathematical standardizations. Some consolation to the hurt pride.
This thread shows you have not pushed your VVT a little more towards performance, careful VVT is addictive too.
Enjoy your car and Drive safe.
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Old 11th December 2010, 18:26   #104
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Re: Beast prevails over beauty. Story of my SX4-ZXi VVT

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Originally Posted by dentalguru View Post
Let me begin by telling you that I 'am almost a fan of your review, one of the most detailed and comprehensive review on SX4.
Thank you very much!

Quote:
After having read a thread by Smartcat comparing various Sedans under 12L to which you too have Significantly contributed , I was Surprised to find that our sanity of judgment questioned, of course nothing Short of it, by the SX4 ranking. And what more the worst part was the very virtue, ‘drivability’ being underrated -especially of a car that we find an absolute delight' to drive both within city and on high way.
I did find it a little too odd that a car which is among the first 5 in performance, is so bad in 30-80 km/hr in 3rd gear or 40- 100 km/hr in gear, My s×4 does it b/w 11.5-12.5sec and 40- 100km/hr in about 20sec. Please check that out on your VVT, possibly a change in the engine or ECU settings could have improved the drivability factor in VVT models.
Yes, I agree that the drivability is fine. I do not have any complaints about the drivability of this car, although some more thrust in 2nd gear would be welcome. Regarding your VVT point, I have already mentioned that the VVT engine is much better than the non-VVT one, both in terms of drivability as well as smoothness. However, if one purely goes by the performance numbers, then the in-gear acceleration times for SX4 (even with VVT) are still a bit poor. But in my case, since I actually enjoy working through the gear box, I don't care for in-gear timings and I am pretty happy with overall performance while working through the gears.

In general, many have already commented in Smartcat's thread as well that the numerical analysis is only an indicative analysis and not necessarily any of the numbers there should be taken as the final word on anything.

Quote:
This thread shows you have not pushed your VVT a little more towards performance, careful VVT is addictive too.
Enjoy your car and Drive safe.
Well, true. So far I have been a bit careful with the car. But now I have slowly started pushing her, and yes, I am pretty happy with her response when pushed hard!
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Old 11th December 2010, 19:08   #105
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Comparison with the mighty T-jet

After having spent so much time (and so much space in this thread) on comparing SX4 against Linea 1.4 EP, it is just natural that I also compare it with the mighty T-jet, now that the latter is available in Bangalore.

Last weekend, I (along with a friend who is also a member here) got an opportunity to thoroughly test drive the T-jet. Since I have already given my detailed comparison of SX4 and Linea and most of the Linea points still hold true for T-jet, in this post I compare only the "new" points of T-jet against SX4.

Engine: This was my main complaint against Linea 1.4 EP and oh boy, with the T-jet, Fiat has not only eliminated my complaint but worked on it to the point that the engine is now the main strength of this beauty! I just loved the T-jet engine. Yes, there is a bit of a turbo-lag, but the engine is a delight at all RPMs. I felt it was noticeably smoother than the non-turbo version, and the engine note was much better! The drivability is fantastic too. And the usual issue (with most cars in that class) of a weak 2nd gear has been addressed to a great extent. The car pulled quite well in the 2nd gear. Purely on engine noise front, the engine is still a bit noisier than the SX4 engine, especially above 3k RPMs, but not to a point of being annoying. In fact, the engine noise is at an optimal level for an enthusiast who enjoys listening to the motor. The sound of the turbo also adds its own few cents to the engine noise, and in general, the noise levels are a bit higher than that in SX4.

Overall, a beautiful engine! How does it compare to the 1.6 VVT of SX4? Simple: it is better than the 1.6 VVT of SX4. Finally, a 1.4 Fiat petrol that is better than a 1.6 Suzuki petrol. Great job, Fiat!

Steering and handling: one word: amazing! As was already the case with Linea, the handling and steering response are top class. I felt that the steering weight and feedback has been further improved (if that was indeed possible given the already perfect steering of Linea) with T-jet. The steering is just amazingly precise! It is a pure joy to handle the steering. In comparison, the steering of SX4 (which anyway was not a very popular one on this forum, and rightly so), feels vague and lifeless. I have especially started hating the steering of SX4 after driving the T-jet. Oh well...

Brakes: Fabulous! The all four disk brakes do wonders to the braking of the T-jet. As I have already mentioned, I love the brakes on SX4 and thought they were a bit a better than those of Linea. With T-jet, the brakes are at par with SX4, although one could expect even better braking with all-four disk brakes. To be honest, we did not do any hard braking and did not test the limits of the brakes. Overall, the brakes are extremely confidence-inspiring.

AC: The sales person was insisting that the AC has been improved and was frequently pointing out the effectiveness of the improved AC in T-jet. I think he was right to an extent and the AC has been definitely improved over the previous iteration. However, the SX4 AC is still better and somehow I found the overall cold air outflow and distribution in SX4 to be better than that in T-jet. I think the improved AC in T-jet throws in very chilled air in the cabin (this I thought was the main improvement), but the relatively smaller vents and the relatively lower position of the vents on the dashboard still results into an suboptimal distribution of cold air in the cabin.

New Alloys: The new 16" alloys looks fabulous, but somehow I still like the 16" alloys of SX4 better. I know this is purely subjective, so no point elaborating on this.

Overall, the T-jet is a huge improvement over Linea 1.4 EP, and I think there was a good chance that my decision would have been different had the T-jet been available back in July. But then again, given that it costs a cool 1.5L more than SX4-ZXi, maybe not. Whether I would have gone for a T-jet or still chosen the SX4-ZXi even if T-jet had been available would remain one of the unsolved mysteries of my own life. I know I will spend many a lazy evenings in near future pondering (and day-dreaming) over this 'what-if' analysis.

Thanks,
-AD
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