After a lot of research / comparative studies and analysis and a long wait for the Jazz, which unfortunately was priced beyond my budget I finally settled for the all New Maruti Suzuki Ritz VXI(Petrol) variant, I booked my car from Varum Motors in Begumpet Hyderabad in June end and had to wait for a full 4 weeks to get my first car - the Blue Blaze ritz petrol.
What clinched the decision for a ritz over the other cars(I was looking only for a petrol car) I considered was -
More space than the i10(1200 cc variant) plus much better looks a great road presence a more refined powerful and an efficient engine,
the i20 is too expensive and I really didnt see the need for Airbags / ABS and other frills as most of my driving would be limited to city driving where you hardly cross 60 Kmph, also the fuel efficiency was not acceptable
the swift was too common and as I was looking for a petrol car I went with maruti’s claim of providing a superior K12M engine, on top of that the ritz felt like a more practical car with more space inside the car including the rear seats where swift has a problem.
Jazz was my dream car for which I waited till June, but it was way beyond my budget which I was ready to stretch only till upto 7 lac for a premium hatch.
The others around this segment like the grande punto or the fabia or the chevrolet UVA etc were not seriously considered as post sales service and fuel efficiency were among my top priorities.
And to top it all for me Japanese engineering is any day better than its Korean Counterparts or American brands, though germans are the best:), so maybe I am a bit biased towards the Hondas / Toyotas or the Suzuki.
As far as looks are concerned I loved it the moment I saw it first, my wife had to look at it a few times to start liking it and by the time we finally decided to buy it she too was in love with the tall and significant road presence and the arrow shaped view when looked from the back at an angle:)
I was a bit disappointed at the fuel consumtion figures I got for the first couple of weeks, the traffic was bad from home to office with almost 20% drive time on first and second gear I got a mileage of 10+ a bit, but subsequently and after the first service with similar or even worse traffic conditions I am currently getting upto 13 KMPL in city which although below the claimed 15 is pretty good I feel. The driveability in city is pleasant and you can stay on 3rd gear at pretty low speeds without much trouble. The AC is very very effective even in hot and humid conditions I have never needed the full blower and for most times min blower speed is sufficient for 2 passengers on the fromt seat
I had an around 400 Km highway trip from Hyderabad to Nagarjuna sagar, which is a single lane highway for most of the part and around a 30 - 40 K m ghats type section, I could touch 130 Kmph effortlessly and coudnt risk trying to go above that given the condition and unpredictibility of highway, but the car was really stable even on cureves at quite high speeds(110 - 120 Kmph) with no steer or overdrive at all. the car was brilliant to drive. I got a mileage of 16KMPL on highway which I thought could be much better had it been a divided 4 lane highway.
all in all a great car to own and drive and reasonable to the pocket, I would give a big thumbs up to this car not just because I own it but it is rreally value for money at 4.78 lakhs ex showroom which cost me 5.2 including all standard accessories including a sony bluetooth / USB enabled music system, key less entry, seat covers and most of the other standard accesories.
PS - One of the comments I got asks me not to compare the Jazz to the Ritz, now being a Mech Engg. there is no way I cant compare, so here goes the comparison -
1)Both are japanese technologies
2) Engine Specs -
Jazz -
Number of Cylinders/ Layout - 4 Cylinders/ In-line
Fuel Type - Petrol
Cubic Capacity - 1198cc
Fuel Efficiency(ARAI tested) - 16.1 km/l
Maximum Power - 90 PS @ 6200 rpm
Maximum Torque - 112 Nm @ 4800 rpm
Ritz -Number of Cylinders/ Layout - 4 Cylinders/ In-line
Fuel Type - Petrol
Cubic Capacity - 1197cc
Fuel Efficiency(ARAI tested) - 17.1 km/l
Maximum Power - 85 PS @ 6000 rpm
Maximum Torque - 113 Nm @ 4500 rpm
Dont think there is much to choose here
3) Internal Cabin space - Comparable Ritz has a huge cabin though can be a bit smaller than the jazz but still comparable
4) Boot - Jazz wins hands down
5) Storage flexibility - Jazz wins hands down though Ritz also boasts of a 60:40 split seats
6) Price - Jazz costs 80% More:)
Bottom line - for people who say ritz and jazz are in different segments, I say those people define segments only by price range and it has nothing to do with engineering.
Though I wuld still have loved to own the Jazz but for me Ritz is comparable:)