I drove this car (ZXi, petrol) belonging to a friend from Mumbai to Goa via Pune and to Bangalore. I own a Maruti Esteem and have driven small cars and also sedans like Ford Icon/Fiesta and also the Swift diesel (to speak of segment) on long drives so comparison could not be resisted. So here’s the detailed review:
Info and availability: The Maruti Website is very useful, good marketing strategy. Maruti is flooded with bookings so not easy to get; especially if you need it quick (less than 2 months), then have to take whatever available colour. Dealers promise within a week and don’t deliver. Beware and be prepared for the delay.
Exterior: My friend had booked Metallic Midnight Black but had to go for Smoky Silver due delays in Black. I think that except for the Red (red on a stubby sedan? Ughhh!), all colours are pretty on this car, especially the Sovereign Blue. Even the Silver is pretty good (hides scratches and dust to say the least), and Looks overall are good (getting subjective here) although a bit stubby. Body coloured everything for the ZXi add to the looks and the alloy wheels are not in other petrol versions. Patch-it-on looks take one star off so 4 stars. Interiors: The space is good (that’s why the exterior stubbiness: it’s a compensation for the space inside). Boot is like a bedroom, go sleep in it. Headroom plenty, legroom good enough for front and rear, unless everyone in your family is 7 feet tall (though frugal the rear, at times is, Master Luke.
Good for the Maaster Yodas, though, it is). The feel of the car interiors and upholstery is comfortable. 4 stars. Instruments and equipment: This is a nuclear sub disguised as a car here, me says. Gauges are well lit however, the fuel and temperature gauge are strangely placed (a habit with many automakers) in that though they show increase from down to up, the gauges are right side oriented instead of left side (such as the RPM and speedo), which makes them show increase in the anti-clockwise direction (little disconcerting). The tripmeter shows traveled distance from the last reset and the separate counters for the total distance and trip distance are obtained with a switch on the same display. The key reminder, driver’s seatblelt, door ajar and also the headlight on reminder (very useful) are available in the VXi and ZXi (this not available, even on the Honda City is, Master Luke. Ahem! What did I just say? True though). Strangely, 12 Volt accessory socket is only available in VXi and not in ZXi. The ZXi has a cigarette lighter which has dubious useful value. The storage with dashboard, glove box etc is okay and with all standard fitments for this class. The front cabin lights are a nice touch, the light panel is springloaded so you just have to press the panel to switch it on/off which takes away the fumbling with the switch. The A/C (climactic control in ZXi, which, again, is not available in the Honda City) is good. Cools a car heated in the sun fairly well. Ambient and inside temperature displays are great features and also have a digital clock. The packaged audio system is reasonable but the CD (alas, Honda City, you don’t even have a CD to go with your fancy USB) skips a little too much over bumps and the search speed in FM is quite slow (even compared to the cheapest Sony system in my car). Steering mounted controls are a great feature with the ZXi. Audio quality is zozo. 4 and a half stars. Safety: The ZXi has front airbags and adjustable front seatbelt anchors. VXi and ZXi have fog lamps and the ZXi has remote control door locks in the key itself. Nice touch in the ZXi is the rear windscreen defogger (you’ll know its value on a foggy day/night). 5 Stars. Sitting comfort: The comfort value is all right. There is also steering tilt adjustment which could be useful to women drivers. However, I found the driver’s seat uncomfortable (I am 5’7" tall) even at the lowest point and comfortable after lot of tweaking with front/rear slide and up down adjustment. Also, I felt that the pedals were angled too steep vertically which added to the problem. Consequently, the angle at which the foot rests on the pedals is too acute and after few hours of driving, my feet were aching (doesn’t happen at all in Esteem or Fiesta but happens in the Icon to a lesser extent). 3 stars. Drive quality and ride comfort: The engine is good at 1.3 Liters with 87 BHP, comparable favourably to my Esteem or the Icon 1.3 L, and scores over both in operation. The lower gears are well spaced, especially the troublesome first and second for rookie drivers. The torque range is very good in the second gear which means lesser gear shifts in the city hence more fuel economy. The gear shift is definitive and easy and power is available in plenty. The third gear starts losing the punch slightly as happens with most cars in this segment but still gives good acceleration which made us the among the fastest cars on the road (I remember overtaking and displacing Esteems, Icons and Logans and even medium SUVs on the NH-4 in the rear view at good pace without taxing the engine much.). The fourth gear is little low on acceleration but nothing to complain here. The overdrive is so so, if you want to accelerate even at a meager pace, you’ll need to downshift. The sour point is the rear visibility. While the height of the car is good giving a good frontal and side view, the design of the elevated boot reduces central rear visibility and makes it difficult to back, espacially in tight parking spaces. The car certainly calls for rear parking sensors (should come packaged in the ZXi). Overall, the drive is peppy in the lower gears and quite reasonable in the higher gears, we are not driving a sports car here. The car was relatively new and I didn’t want to push it but we could comfortably hold 120 kmph (touched 140 in brief stretches) with a good oomph still left and the car being totally stable. I think the car could touch 160 but we are not racing, right? Thinking of speed, the brakes are very good (ABS in the ZXi) and without any instability. The ABS showed a good value when braking without skid in a tight turn from 60 to 20 kmph in the Ghats near Panaji. Ride comfort is less for the driver but good for passengers for reasons mentioned before. We took a Karnataka state road SH-31, from Belgaum into Goa and that was the most horrible road I drove on in my life. There were more potholes (6" to 8"deep on average and almost 2 feet deep ditches in places) than road there (we couldn’t exceed 10-20 kmph for over 20-25 km) and the tar of the road had completely worn off. The ground clearance of the DZire proved satisfactory here, the chassis still touched 3-4 times. I shudder to think of the fate my Esteem would suffer on that road. The suspension of the car took this onsl