AMT gear shifts have settled into my driving rhythm. As I have always stated, these are barely better than the 1st generation and often fumble under circumstances of slight acceleration or incline.

BHPian no_boundaries recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

ODO reading: 8686 km

Several highway trips and some city trips that took about the same time as the highway trips later, the Baleno has settled well in its element. I get a consistent mileage between 18 to 19kmpl with a mix of city and highway driving.

Some Observations since my last update -

• On a particularly bad patch of city road, my rear right tyre suffered a tear and sadly could not be rescued. I found the apollo alnac 4G on the stock spec however I couldn't source the H speed rating and had to settle for the V speed rating. The wear and tear was not high or uneven hence went with this option that was fortunately economical.
• Infotainment is not stable. It either randomly mutes out the audio completely or the screen freezes with no response to touch or long pressing the power. I need to get this checked at the 3rd service coming up in December. The version is the latest to the model as per the Suzuki app.
• LED Lights works well on dry road conditions however on wet surfaces there is no reflection at all. I need to considerably reduce speed on highways when it rains due to this. The halogens worked fabulously under such conditions.
• AMT gear shifts have settled into my driving rhythm. As I have always stated, these are barely better than the 1st generation and often fumble under circumstances of slight acceleration or incline. On a recent trip to Wayanad, this was very pronounced and I had to toggle to manual gear shift to save the clutch and engine.
• The seat fabric is really rough to touch. I've spread a soft bed sheet to the rear seat which helps the feel however its an eyesore
• The engine and gearbox works best if you drive the car to its capability. You can drive fast and long at higher speed however it just doesn't like those pedal stomping gear dropping aggression. I don't think its necessary on any car on our roads, but that's just me.

Modifications and Upgrades 

None. The car comes with all features that is required and practical. However there are few bits I want to change to personalize -

• Dashboard Camera - I will be getting the Viofo A129 Pro Dual Dash camera shortly. I was hoping the MASS could help fix this for me
• Car Detailing - Once the 3rd service is completed and I have a day to spare I want to handover the car to a good detailer for a thorough spic and span. During this process I also want to do a chrome delete from the car
• Speaker upgrade - I need to do some research on this before I spend money. It needs to be functional and not flamboyant

Signing off with a picture from a recent trip to Wayanad - Thoroughly enjoyed the drive with no fatigue

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Got approximately 700 km of range on a full tank of fuel, while not driving sedately.

BHPian Chandler Bing recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I bought the New Baleno Zeta Manual in Dec 2022 and recently did a road trip to Goa from Bengaluru.

Here is how I felt about the car:

• The engine is absolutely silent, smooth and engaging. Just love the grunt from the K12 engines !!!
• The gearbox has a sleek shifting, never did I miss a shift or had issues with shifting. Not the smoothest ones like those of Hyundai. But definitely better than Tata's.
• Managed to get a range of approximately 700 kms with a full tank (37L). The driving was not sedate. Cruising at 90-100 should definitely return better figures.
• Overtaking with 3 people and luggage onboard was a breeze. However, this engine is more tuned for efficiency. The old generation engine was more brisk and quick.
• The comfort was really good. I'm 6ft tall and had no problems with the driving position. The seats could have been a bit harder. The softer seat makes it uncomfortable for long drives. The dead pedal somewhat feels oddly placed. As I always struggled to get my foot off it with shoes on.
• Had no issues with the infotainment system. No restarts or lags. It was smooth as butter !! The Smartplay Pro and Pro+ systems on the new Maruti cars are really good in terms of UI smoothness and usability. The music was okay. Neither was it too good nor too bad.
• I had my doubts about the steering response as the old Maruti steering had no life in it. Surprisingly the new unit weighed up pretty well at high speeds. It is nowhere close to Tata or the Germans. But at least it has some life in it !!
• I love watching that analogue cluster and the needle going up! Hate these new-age digital clusters which look no less than a cartoon.

Things which could have been better?

• The stock Apollo tyres carry a bit of noise inside the cabin.
• The alpha variant gets UV-cut glass, which helps A lot in these scorching summers. Maruti should at least provide this on the Zeta variants !! Can we get these retrofitted in Zeta at MASS? If yes any idea how much it would cost?
• Even though the interiors are new, I still like the beige treatment on the Glanza more !!

ODO: 3317 km

Round trip: 1377 km

Overall it's a fun-to-drive machine with good comfort and fuel efficiency. Looking forward to crunching more miles with this one Cheers!

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Overall mileage was 20kmpl. What helped was driving between 90 - 100km/hr and using cruise control mostly.

BHPian no_boundaries recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

ODO Reading: 3,800km

Observations post 1900kms drive to Pune and back to Bangalore

• Overall mileage was 20kmpl. What helped was driving between 90 - 100km/hr and using cruise control mostly. I did burst to 121km/hr on some stretches where the rpm rose to 3200 and the beeper would go off. They could have at least used a polyphonic alert on their premium offering

• I tried the manual mode, it helped certainly but it defeats the purpose of buying an automatic. Coming from a Celerio AGS, the AGS on the Baleno is still bad and leaves a lot to desire at highway speeds. The response and feedback to acceleration input is very very slow. What I like is it still holds the higher gear and the engine does a great job to pull through. A manual gear shift would have been remarkable here, I guess hence the manual option . Yet, the gearbox must be competent enough to handle such mundane situation

• Alnac 4G is noisy on most road surfaces except the really smooth ones. Cannot comment on the grip as it didn't let up at those normal speeds. The suspension is soft and after long driving hours you feel a bit of dizziness once you get off the car. Strange, never felt this way in any car.

• The seating is comfortable and you just need the right setting to suit your elbows and ankles to drive without pain. I've observed a bad seating position first affects these 2 areas and then the back and neck

• AC worked flawlessly however it takes longer to cool the cabin especially when the car is parked under the afternoon sun. This despite having garware sunfilm on front and back windshield.

Overall It's a premium city car that I knew very well at the time of purchase and I have no complaints driving it within the city

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The Baleno certainly feels like its a 2 step upgrade from the Ignis. The interiors are really upmarket!

BHPian neil.jericho recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A few days ago, we brought home a new Maruti Baleno AGS Zeta. We went with the Zeta version as it came with 6 air bags (non-negotiable for us). The Alpha variant had features which were nice to have and not necessarily must haves, at least for our usage. The Baleno was a logical upgrade from my Mom's Maruti Ignis, which was a car that I really detested driving, on account of its comically non centering steering. Thankfully, the Baleno doesnt seem to have this problem.

With a budget of around Rs 10 L (including the exchange value of the Ignis), there were 2 cars which I had shortlisted - the new Maruti Baleno AGS and the Hyundai Grand i10 Nios. IIRC we were comparing the mid variant of the Baleno, with the top end variant of the Grand i10 Nios. Between the two, the interiors of the Baleno felt significantly more premium, though my Mom preferred the compact size of the Grand i10 Nios. The Hyundai was cheaper by around Rs 50K, as well.

Two of the main reasons for sticking with Maruti were the good resale value and peace of mind when it came to service. The Maruti service center is situated very close to my Mom's place of work. The service advisors come and collect the car keys, get the vehicle serviced and return the keys, without any fuss. Prior to the Ignis, my Mom owned a Hyundai i10. Every visit to the Hyundai SVC involved a prolonged battle with the service advisor to knock off all the unnecessary items that were sqeezed into the inflated bills. Dr Crazy_Driver's mammoth thread on Hyundai also played a key role in swaying our decision towards the Baleno.

That said, the "supposedly premium" Nexa sales experience nearly pushed us to cancel our booking and go with the Grand i10 Nios, instead. The irony is that both dealerships are under the Popular group, but they couldnt be more different from each other. One is a well run, professional setup. The other is staffed with amateurs, barring one gentleman.

Popular Hyundai sales experience

On my first visit to the showroom, I was promptly attended to by an executive, who also offered me some refreshments. She took my details down, as well. I was quickly assigned a sales executive, who suggested the Grand i10 Nios or the i20. After a thorough walkthrough of both cars, he immediately arranged for a demo car to take me to their stockyard to see the different colours that were available. The sales executive also followed up frequently to arrange the test drive for my parents. The only sour point with the Hyundai sales experience was the abysmal resale that they offered for our low run Ignis. Later on, when they got to know what Maruti quoted, they tried to match it, as best they could. Overall, this was a very good sales experience.

Popular Nexa sales experience

On my first visit to the showroom, I was promptly attended to by an executive, who didnt take down my details. The showroom only had one Grand Vitara and 2 Ignis cars. When I asked the sales executive about the Baleno, its variants, colours etc, he told me that I had to go to the stockyard if I wanted to see the car. He didnt bother to take my details or provide any information on the car. I even asked him if he was interested in selling me a car but he wasnt even bothered to feign the effort.

After I sent an email to Maruti's customer care, the showroom's sales manager got in touch with me and assigned another sales executive. On the morning of the scheduled test drive at my home, there was no update from him. More than 45 minutes later, without even an apology, he called me to say that he was still in the showroom. A few days later, he was supposed to bring the car to my parents place for a test drive. Instead of calling me to say that the car was not available, despite confirming the appointment several days in advance, he dropped me a brief voice note on Whatsapp.

Thankfully, the showroom's sales manager realized that the experience was going rapidly downhill and took time out of his personal schedule, on a Sunday, to bring the car for a test drive.

While I was test driving the Baleno, the sales executive had contacted his counterpart at True Value and quoted a ballpark figure of Rs 5.3L for the exchange of our Ignis. When the same True Value executive came to inspect the car, he pointed out one small sensor issue, which we fixed promptly at their SVC. However, despite the issue getting rectified, for some strange reason, he kept lowballing us on the exchange price. After a lot of back and forth, the sales manager came back to us saying that they were taking back their quote of Rs 5.3L and could only offer Rs 5.1L, and that too after so many approvals etc. It was almost as though he had moved heaven and earth to give us Rs 20K less than what they had initially quoted. He was flummoxed when I told him that the Hyundai team had also quoted Rs 5.1L.

To compensate for the missing Rs 20K, the sales manager offered to switch the existing Rs 5K loyalty bonus to a Rs 6K accessories bonus. The measely Rs 1K increment was not what we were expecting to get. Though the exchange value fiasco nearly ruined the sales experience, we decided to let it go, as we were happy with the Baleno and wanted the car before April 1st, which is when the state tax was going up.

Meanwhile, it was such a chore to get the sales executive to share the correct final breakup of the payment to be made. Either he would forget to add line items or he would add the numbers up incorrectly and so on. This back and forth took several days.

After completing the payment formalities (ex-showroom + insurance + accessories etc), we purchased the car insurance from our agent. Till then, we had not brought up the topic of taking insurance with the dealership. I sent across the insurance policy to the sales executive and asked him to close the registration formalities. The next day, I received multiple calls from the sales executive and his manager. The shocked manager claimed that I wasnt allowed to take insurance from outside and that he was going to withdraw the accessories bonus, because he assumed we will take Maruti's insurance. Despite politely reminding him that the topic of insurance was never discussed and that, as a customer, there was no link between the accessories bonus and showroom insurance, he adamantly stuck to his guns.

In parallel, my email complaints to Maruti had been redirected to the CRM at the showroom. In all my interactions with the Nexa dealership, this was the only person who was a true professional. Later on, I found out that he had served in the armed forces for a long time. He swiftly addressed all my prior concerns with the sales process, as well as the sales manager's hilarious threat to withdraw all the offers, despite all the payments being made.

After the registration and paperwork was done, I received no further communication from the sales executive or his manager to inform me about the delivery date and next steps. They just vanished right into thin air! I had to follow up with the CRM to coordinate the delivery date and time.

Delivery experience

Though the registration formalities and number plate installation were done a few days before the end of the FY, we took delivery on the 1st of April, for personal reasons. The delivery was scheduled for 4 PM. In the afternoon, the CRM called to inform us that his team had not yet installed the fog lights and that the delivery would be slightly delayed. To his credit, he ensured that it was done ASAP. Finally, we were given a time of 4:30 PM.

When we got there, the lady receptionist directed us to the waiting lounge and we were served refreshments. Though no other customers were in the showroom, nobody attended to us for the next 20 minutes. All the executives were chilling out inside a conference room. Neither did our sales executive make an appearance, nor did his manager. As I said, vanished right into thin air!

One sales executive came to tell us that our car would take another 15-20 minutes to arrive, when we could see the car parked 15 feet away, in the showroom itself!!!

As soon as the CRM arrived, he helped us install the various mobile applications, gifted us a pair of complimentary coffee cups and conducted the key handover. The uninterested sales executives were magnanimous enough to step out of their conference room, if only to clap and take a photograph of the handover. Their expressions were as though they were teenagers being given lectures on old school morality by their strict parents.

I have never seen a more uninterested, non-supportive set of showroom executives in my life. Not one of them lifted a finger to facilitate the car delivery.

The CRM had to remove all the seat covers and give us a walkthrough of the infotainment system. Im sure none of this is in his job description but it was clear that nobody else in the showroom was going to conduct the car delivery, either.

As a token of our thanks, we gifted him a pen. Had it not been for him, I would have still been waiting to hear from my sales executive on when I could take delivery of my car .....

In summary

This was a downright embarrassing sales and delivery experience from Popular Nexa. My parents were quite unhappy with the entire experience. There is a basic courtesy which has to be extended to customers, which was certainly lacking from the Popular Nexa team. Barring the excellent CRM, who continuously went above and beyond his line of duty, everyone else in the Nexa chain seems to be treating it as a government job, where the customer has to be grateful to spend Rs 10L to buy a car from them. I really dont know why Hyundai's sales executives have to work hard, when the Nexa showroom which is down the road, helps convert Hyundai's potential leads into actual sales.

I really hope that someone from Maruti is aware of how mis-managed the entire pre-sales and delivery process is, in this showroom. I had sent an email to Maruti, asking for their area sales manager to get in touch with me, but that never happened. I can only suggest that Cochin based TBHPians buy their Nexa products from other dealerships. The hours of unnecessary headache, just to upgrade to another car in the Nexa suite, is hard to justify.

And finally, the car ...

I have to admit, the Baleno certainly feels like its a 2 step upgrade from the Ignis. The interiors are really upmarket! I drove it back to my parents home and though there was a lot of traffic, the return journey was a joy. The engine seems to be nicely mated to the gearbox. The Ignis's gearbox made us feel like we were in a boat, with its constant head bobbing. That isnt the case with the Baleno AGS. Overall, this feels like a premium, well rounded hatchback. I will share my driving experiences with the Baleno, as I get some more time with the car.

Its a shame that for a car this nice, the sales experience had to be so rotten ....

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AGS still fumbles and is slow to respond to acceleration input. There is 0 sense of urgency and all overtaking requires planning and careful 360 observation.

BHPian no_boundaries recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Odo: 1900 km

With 2 long drives completed, one to Mysore and other to Chennai, over last 2 weeks, I got 19.8KMPL to Mysore and 18.7KMPL to Chennai. I diligently maintained 100 - 110KMPH without any aggressive acceleration or drop in gears.

Few observations -

• AGS still fumbles and is slow to respond to acceleration input. There is 0 sense of urgency and all overtaking requires planning and careful 360 observation. The wonderful engine is limited by this gearbox

• The brakes are still not sharp and still has a sponge effect. Need to sort this with the MASS

• During peak summers, the AC work pretty well. I also got sunfilm installed on the front and rear windshield, probably that's adding too

• The suspension is soft and absorbs bad roads very well however this affects the ride stability, especially on curving, winding roads

• The dead pedal placement is not comfortable with any seat adjustment

• Audio clarity has improved and the sound output with apple music on lossless format is amazing

• Irresponsibly missed the 1st service at 1000kms. I will be taking the car in shortly. Its been very hectic and really wish MASS had doorstep service

A recent pic taken at Besant Nagar, Chennai

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I still can't rely on the 360 camera as the image is very poor to accurately gauge a tight spot.

BHPian no_boundaries recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

We welcomed the 2023 Baleno Alpha AGS 3 weeks ago. Sharing my initial impressions, coming from 2017 Celerio AGS

I like -

• Engine has become very silent and responsive to throttle inputs

• It takes at least 100kms of driving for gearbox to tune to driver's driving style. Now the gear shifts right when I want it to

• Seats are so comfortable, all controls just falls in your access

• AC chills well even under blazing sun, typical of a Maruti.

• Car feels stable in a straight line and well built

What I'm trying to cope with -

• AGS is better than the 1st gen AGS, it still requires the driver's conscious effort to moderate acceleration inputs. If a new driver adapting to this gearbox is not careful about this, they could prematurely ruin the gearbox, as my dad did with the celerio

• Suspension is soft such that you feel the car move more than the tyres turn on road

• Seat fabric could have been softer to touch

• Audio is still poorly tuned. Would have loved some more tuning and differentiation between low, mid and high frequency distribution

• Rear visibility is poor through the rear windshield as it slopes limiting a clear view. I still can't rely on the 360 camera as the image is very poor to accurately gauge a tight spot. My wife makes fun of me when I try to ignore the camera and look around from the car

Overall, if you fall in love with a car for simple basic things it does, it's easy to overlook the other shortcomings.

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I am yet to test the new features (if any) that got added including turn by turn navigation in the HUD.

BHPian paragsachania recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Latest OTA update for 2022 Baleno (Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay):

After Brezza last got an OTA update featuring wireless connectivity for Android auto and Apple CarPlay, I got flagged by BHPian mi2n regarding the update made available for the 2022 Baleno as well. I managed to download the update package and install it and also tested the successful working of wireless Android auto in our Baleno.

Downloaded the file from here by selecting the current version.

Click on "Go to the download page", and start download:

Copy this lone file directly to the root folder of the USB drive:

Plug in the USB drive, start the system and let the system perform the update

The version that came with the car:

After the system starts and detects the update package in the USB drive:

Upon pressing yes, it begins downloading the package from the USB drive:

Begins to update post downloading the package locally:

Completed update to latest version:

Deleted my phone from the paired devices and added again:

Soon after pairing, you get a prompt that your phone supports wireless Android Auto:

Tried and tested and works like charm:

I am yet to test the new features (if any) that got added including turn by turn navigation in the HUD. Need to check later if the navigation feature works at all or not since this is mentioned in the owner's manual.

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