I brought Ertiga ZDI in October, 2014 and till now covered 34, 000km. I chose this car mainly because of the fact that, all my cars in last 10 years were Maruti made and they never gave any significant problem to me. I had Maruti 800 and Swift Diesel earlier and my wife is currently driving Alto K10. So you can say we are loyal maruti customer ….:D
Now coming to the review of ownership experience, I use this car for daily commuting to office and for any family trips. This car has done many long drives which include 3 times Delhi – Kolkata return trip, Delhi – Manali, Delhi – Bikaneer and many more.
The initial experience up to 26, 000km was really nice, there was no problem and only regular services are required. But then I faced 1st & 2nd gear synchronizer problem in which shifting to these two gears becomes a difficult task.
The repair work is done by authorized service center and covered under warranty. When this problem appeared, the service center guy told me that this is a very common problem in all Ertiga Diesels. Then I started searching the internet and found that really many many reported cases on gearbox problem. Now, after repair in next 5000km of drive the problem re-appeared. Now at 34, 000km I am waiting for the spare parts for the last one week while managing to drive the car with this severe gear shifting problem. Because of the faulty gearbox, the clutch also gets damaged and the customer has to pay 10, 000 each time this repair work is called for as the clutch is not covered in warranty.
So a diesel Ertiga is not at all reliable. If you want to buy this car then please go for the Petrol version. If you are determined to buy diesel version then I will suggest you to ask for feedback from customers using this car and who has already covered a good lot of kilometres say about 50k.
Pros of this car:
1) Handling at speed, Power steering and brakes are excellent. Much better than Swift I had earlier.
2) Presence on road can be felt due to it’s tall boy design.
3) Mileage is good. I have got 19km/L on highway and regularly get 16km/L in city.
4) Interior is good. The 3rd row is also usable as the middle row can be slide to adjust leg space as per comfort.
5) Power is quite enough to pull the car in steep hills as well. I have done trips to hills with 7 people on board.
Cons of this car:
1) At low speeds(below 30km/hr) the car face difficulty to match speed with other cars on road. In city this becomes irritating at some point of time as you have to frequently change the gears. But, beyond this speed, the driving is a breeze, you always have enough power to overtake others.
2) In diesel version you need some time to get habituated with the massive turbo lag of this car.
3) The worst part, diesel version gearbox problem. This makes the car unreliable and repair cost is also quite high, each time about 10k when the car in warranty, and around 20k when the car is not under warranty.
I would not recommend diesel version of this car.