Then comes the suspension, which makes quite a ruckus. and its not the tyre noise which we all have learnt to live with due to the bad road making techniques, where the pebbles stick out of the road. its a rattly kind of sound and is very much audible when the road is slightly bumpy. The rear wheels come up with a slight gurgling noise when driven on the bumpy roads and if there is an trough or a crest in the road, be ready for a ride of your lifetime... Whenever I am driving on a road which has troughs and crests, the punjaabi lullaby "Jhoote maayian gudian khilaayian...." comes to my mind... this is what my mother used to sing when she had me on her feet and then used to lift them up imitating a swing.... the suspension makes the car wallow when coming out of a trough and god forbid if you are high speeds... then you try to hit the brakes... although the discs are pretty effective, the pads tend to wear off pretty soon in the traffic conditions of Delhi, where stop and go is the norm rather than an exception.
Then the overall build quality... the gear knob is being put as chrome finished one... the polish started to peel off in one month and then it was the much touted silver coloured trim on the centre console... $hitty plastic painted in Brushed Aluminium finish. And the one thing which takes the cake is the wiring for the central door locks. Had to get it rectified as the driver’s side door lock would not budge into open position no matter how much I tried. And now the thing has staretd acting up again, making me feel a little insecure with the incident of the car catching fire and all the time, the doors did not open as there was a problem with the wiring.
To top things up, they did not offer a CD player as a standard fitment in the car. The company seems to be living in the times when cassette players were a rage. The only decent piece of company fitted material seems to be the 6 inch Kenwood Speakers which seem to reproduce sounds from all ranges impeccably and the bass comes out real nice. The power antenna does not want to slide into its cubbyhole when not needed and prefers to stick out like a sore thumb and when coaxed to come out in full glory, makes a rickety clickety sound and then acts like a bent old person who cannot stand up in full glory.
I can go on and on with the problems I have had with this car but to cut it short, after this headache of a car, I am not going to be looking for a car in the sedan segment if it is from then stables of Maruti. The company seems to have forgotten the art of making good cars which made them a huge success in the beginning but have lost it along the way.