Brought home a Grand Vitara hybrid: What I like & what could be better

The journey started with no plans to buy a new car anytime soon to buying a 23 lakh Maruti by someone who decided not to buy a Maruti.

BHPian car-o-phile recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi everyone,

I have been watching this thread since a month and surprisingly, after I bought my Grand Vitara Alpha Plus.

Just a quick background of why I bought it.

I owned a 2014 Honda City iVTec V and a 2017 Celerio AMT ZXi Optional. I was working from home since 5 years. 6 months ago started going to office and daily commute in the NCR traffic was a pain. If it were not for daily commute, I planned to buy a new car in 2024 and that too electric.

When the Tiago EV was launched, I thought of buying it and getting rid of the Celerio. But soon dropped the idea as it being too small for a daily comfortable driver.

Then I looked at Nexon EV and we almost sealed the deal. We thought of looking at the hybrid cars once as we still had some doubts on the electric cars and had to keep the City as a second car (we do not need 2 cars as of now). We did not want to go from the 4th Gen city to the 5th Gen City. We looked at Hyryder and everyone in the family liked it. I had no idea about the long waiting periods as we were not actively looking for a car until recently. We decided to go with the Hyryder G variant and sell both the cars.

I did not want to wait for few month now that I finalised the car. I had to get it asap. Tried to find some "jugaad" but not strong enough that could have got me the car in less than 2 weeks.

Finally on Oct 12 got the jugaad from but for the Grand Vitara and that too Alpha Plus and not the Hyryder G equivalent Zeta Plus.

So in short the journey started with no plans to buy a new car anytime soon to buying a 23 lakh Maruti by someone who decided not to buy a Maruti. And that too without any test drive.

Experience so far:

I really like the car and I am happy with my decision. Got the NEXA blue color and immediately got PPF done to save the paint.

Here is what I like about the car and what could have been better. I am not a car reviewer so the experience will always be in comparison to my previously owned car.

What I like:

• Car really feels tough (coming from a city owner).
• On the EV mode it is super silent.
• The ride is great. It takes up bumps easily.
• I am loving the SUV form factor. It has been the biggest change after driving a sedan for the last 8 years.
• It is extremely efficient. I was able to get 23kmpl (full tank to full tank method) in the last 800km of City driving mostly in bumper to bumper traffic.
• I feel a sense of accomplishment to get more efficiency everyday and a sense of motivation to get even better.
• As far as power, is concerned it is adequate. If you are in the power mode and you have 2-3 bars of battery, the car takes off easily. Haven't driven it on highway yet but managed to get to 90-100 kmph easily without any feeling of power being insufficient.
• The 360 camera feature is a good addition even if the camera resolution is not great. It comes in handy.
• Ventilated seats too is a plus in the NCR heat. Tested it in Oct when the car interiors heated up because of no shade in the parking. And immediately realised the worth of the feature.
• Another feature that I agreed to let go of while deciding to go with the G variant is TPMS. It too is something that should be there in every variant of a car whenever possible.
• I am now used to the "B" mode which utilises the regenerative braking to charge the battery. Not only it increases efficiency but also limits the use of brakes to a great extent. It will increase the life of the brakes too.
• Ground clearance is sufficient for the bad under construction roads I go through everyday.

What could have been better:

• No car is perfect. And what an individual likes or dislikes about a car is very subjective.
• The gear lever edge above the button is rough. You feel it every time you change the gears.
• There should have been an indicator on the gear lever/console on which gear the car is in. Even though you can see it in the digital instrument display and HUD but I feel it is a miss.
• The dual color theme in the interiors should have been provided by Maruti instead of keeping it all black for the strong hybrid variants.
• The cladding is gloss black. It is a Plus in terms of the looks and it not getting faded in the future but had to get it PPFd too to protect it from scratches.
• The headlight and wiper controls should have been back-lit.
• Rear seat is narrower and less roomier than what I and my family have been used to since past 8 years.

As far as the criticism goes here are my comments:

• The hybrid engine is noisy. It surely is if you rev it hard. If you drive normally and have music on at low volumes, you don't feel it.
• The sunroof shade is cheap and ruins the experience. It is extremely thin. But I surely do not feel it ruins the experience at all. It definitely brings much needed light in the otherwise dark cabin. How it will play in the peak of the summers is yet to be seen.
• Part sharing. Who doesn't? City and Jazz had almost identical e tire dashboards. Every other manufacturer does this. Why is Maruti being targeted for it is unfair.
• The boot space is poor. It is indeed less. But for someone who needs that much amount of bootspace too often will never go with this car. For us as a family, we rarely go on road trips. It is adequate for us.
• Headroom at the back. I am 6ft tall and have had no issue at all.

In the end, it is a wonderful car. Add Maruti's ease and low cost of maintenance and the superb fuel efficiency, it is an even better package.

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